19
votes
Conservative Karol Nawrocki wins Poland's presidential election
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- Title
- Poland election's first exit polls show race too close to call
- Published
- Jun 1 2025
- Word count
- 166 words
It was a pretty important election, and a very close call.
All in all, Poland is still pretty politically polarised, and personally, I didn't significantly expect Trzaskowski to win the election with any reasonable margin.
What's gonna change? Well, until at least 2027 - nothing much, for better or worse. Trzaskowski winning could have allowed the current government (KO/TD/Lewica) to proceed with more liberal reforms without fear of a presidential veto, which requires >60% of the parliament to agree to overturn it, which the current government coalition lacks - so, for now, things just remain in limbo until at least 2027.
In 2027 the next parliament's elections will occur, which has 3 possibilities:
The progressive/liberal coalition wins with a combined percentage of >60% of seats (fairly unlikely) and liberal reforms may continue
The aforementioned coalition wins with a <60% of seats (most likely case as of now, IMO), meaning "same panic, different disco" until the next presidential election
PiS wins (solo or with a coalition), meaning we return to the same situation as between mid-2010s and 2023.
Overall I wouldn't say I'm remarkably worried - more or less moderately concerned.
I was following the initial exit polls and was happy to see Trzaskowski up in the initial estimate, sad to check back a few hours later to see it reversed. A close election no doubt. Nice to read your breakdown here.
It was such a close estimate that the margins of error could completely change the result, sadly.
I will say it was a little optimistic to see the turnout being 4-5% higher than the 1st round's, though. I doubt their votes were uniformly distributed between the two candidates.
Welp, I really hope this won't mean more political instability in Poland. There is a good chance that that would mean more oppression of minorities, women, right when we're at a very critical time geopolitically. Fortunately Poland is very anti-Russia so I doubt that that is going to be an issue but I just wish I didn't have to worry about the consistent attacks on the rule of the law happening in so many parts of the world.
For all the lessons I've learned of history, I don't think anything prepared - or could have prepared - me for the mental strain of living in such uncertain times. Take care everyone.
For better or worse, the role of the president is fairly decorative - their main power is to veto decisions of the government coalition (requiring >60% of the parliament agreeing to overrule it).
In some cases the current government has been able to sidetrack presidential vetos with some clever tricks, but sadly that's not going to lead to major liberal reforms, as you understand.
The next chance for PiS to truly start oppressing minorities and women again is on the next parliamental elections, but some of their bullshit laws still exist due to not having been overturned because of presidential veto, e.g. abortion illegality
Seems that Tusk has announced a no-confidence vote, so potentially we might see something happen even before 2027, @TaylorSwiftsPickles
Interesting, thanks for the update!
Assuming party discipline is maintained, it shouldn't be a problem, unless TD or Lewica defect - which would likely not benefit either of them. But, I guess we'll see. I find the possibility of TD defection not completely unrealistic.
Yeah it's interesting.
It could just be a matter of consolidating/confirming his current parliamentary support of he thinks he has it.
Or things could start come tumbling back down on the EU's eastern flank.