The Poles are likely to have to decide on a new president in a runoff election on June 1st. The first forecasts saw the liberal -conservative candidate Rafal Trzaskowski from Donald Tusk’s government camp in 30.8 percent of the votes, Karol Nawrocki from the national conservative PIS therefore received 29.1 percent. Before supporters, Trzaskowski gave himself fighting on Sunday evening and looked at the upcoming runoff. “This result shows how strong and determined we have to be to win the presidential election. That was clear from the start,” said the Liberal Conservative with a view to the small distance. Nawrocki also turned a look ahead in the evening: “We will win this election, we are ready, we are determined, and in the end it will be a victory together, a victory for Poland.” The previous President Andrzej Duda must not take up again after two term. Whoever follows him is crucial for the future scope of the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Since he recovered in Warsaw with his liberal-conservative citizens’ coalition at the end of 2023, the relationship with Poland and Europe has been significantly relaxed. In the eight years before, the nationalist-conservative party “Law and Justice” (PIS) had followed an authoritarian-isolationist, confrontative style. When she also attacked the independence of the judiciary, the EU Commission sued Poland and blocked 137 billion euros in funding. However, the PIS had continued to fill an important position with Duda as President. The President had made Tusk’s government as difficult as possible. Laws that the government coalition in the SEJM, the Polish parliament has decided, he usually does not sign or forwards them to the constitutional court “for examination”, which is still occupied by PIS mutants and is therefore not independent.
