Polish knife-edge presidential vote pits liberal mayor against conservative

Poles will vote for a new president on Sunday in a tight election that will have major consequences for the future of the country's pro-EU government.

Opinion polls say Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and national conservative historian Karol Nawrocki are running neck and neck.

Poland's president is a largely ceremonial role, but it does come with significant negative power.

The president has the right to veto legislation, and the coalition government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn it.

Karol Nawrocki is a staunch opponent of Donald Tusk's coalition, and he is expected to use the veto as much if not more frequently than the incumbent conservative President Andrzej Duda, who cannot run for a third consecutive term.

Tusk has been unable to deliver many of his campaign promises since taking office 18 months ago due to Duda's veto and divisions within his coalition which includes conservatives, centrists and leftists.

Tusk promised Polish women legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy and voters he would repair the rule of law in the judiciary.

Many critics say Poland's top courts were politicised under the previous Law and Justice-led (PiS) government that lost power in late 2023.

On both issues, Tusk has made little headway.

After narrowly winning the election's first round on 18 May, Rafal Trzaskowski pledged to co-operate with the government to accomplish both.

Whichever candidate mobilises their voters in Sunday's second round run-off will be key to who becomes the next president.

Another significant factor is who can attract the votes of two far-right candidates who placed third and fourth in the first round.

The anti-establishment candidates received three times as many votes as they did in the last presidential election in 2020.

While those voters Nawrocki's socially conservative views, some libertarians disagree with his for generous state benefits for the less well-off.

Both candidates led large, rival patriotic marches in Warsaw last Sunday to show who had the biggest .

Almost all the participants at Nawrocki's rally carried the red-and-white Polish flag. No-one had the blue EU flag. One banner read "Enough of Tusk's [demolition] of democracy".

Magdalena and her sister Marta said Nawrocki's patriotism was important. "We care first for our family, then the nation and after that the world," Magdalena told me.

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