Will the ruling party’s candidate lose the Polish presidential election?

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

By Aleks Szczerbiak

The liberal-centrist ruling party candidate’s poll lead is slipping and he could be in trouble if the May presidential election turns into a plebiscite on the government. But he remains the clear favourite and his right-wing opponent has yet to channel these anti-incumbent sentiments effectively.

A crucial election

In December 2023, a coalition government led by Donald Tusk, who had served as Polish prime minister between 2007-14, was sworn in, ending the eight-year rule of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party. Tusk is leader of the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO) which once again became the country’s main governing party.

The new coalition also includes the eclectic Third Way (Trzecia Droga) alliance – which itself comprises the agrarian-centrist Polish People’s Party (PSL), and the liberal-centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) grouping formed to capitalise on TV personality-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia’s strong third place in the 2020 presidential election – and the smaller New Left (Nowa Lewica) party, the main component of a broader Left (Lewica) electoral alliance.

However, the government has had to cohabit with PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda, and lacks the three-fifths parliamentary majority required to overturn his legislative veto. This has acted as a major obstacle in its efforts to unravel its predecessor’s legacy and implement deep institutional reforms.

Duda has, for example, made it clear that he will block government attempts to liberalise the country’s restrictive abortion law and unpick its predecessor’s key justice system reforms if they undermine the legitimacy of his judicial appointments made since PiS introduced its changes. In some cases, he has also hindered the administration’s attempts to replace PiS state office nominees where this requires legislation or a presidential sign-off.

All of this means that the outcome of May’s presidential election will have huge implications for whether the ruling coalition can govern effectively during the remainder of its term of office, which is set to run until autumn 2027.

Last month saw the formal start of the presidential campaign, with the first round of voting scheduled for 18 May and a second round run-off a fortnight later between the top two candidates if none secures more than 50%.

The current front-runners are: PO deputy leader and Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who lost narrowly to Duda in 2020; and PiS-backed head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) Karol Nawrocki.

Trzaskowski’s victory would remove a major obstacle to the Tusk administration’s institutional reform and elite replacement project and help to complete the process of so-called “reckoning” (in Polish: rozliczenie) with the previous PiS administration’s alleged abuses of power (which it denies vehemently). PO leaders call this the “closure of the system” (domknięcie systemu).

If Nawrocki wins, on the other hand, the government can expect continued resistance from the presidential palace for the remainder of its term and it could even pave the way for an early parliamentary election.

Trzaskowski’s lead is narrowing

Trzaskowski appears to be the favourite, with a clear first round lead and winning second round run-offs with all hypothetical opponents in every opinion poll that has been published to date (except for one outlier).

However, the last couple of months have seen a narrowing of his poll lead. According to the liberal-left OKO.press website, Trzaskowski saw his first round polling average decline from 39% last November to 35% in January, while Nawrocki’s increased from 21% to 26% over the same period. In a second round run-off, Trzaskowski’s lead over Nawrocki narrowed from 55%-37% to 49%-40%.

The fact that Trzaskowski starts as the long-standing frontrunner pursued by a chasing pack could be problematic for him. A continued poll lead can easily make his supporters complacent, convincing them that the election outcome is already settled.

Moreover, when a seemingly impregnable frontrunner suddenly appears to be losing ground it is often difficult to reverse this negative trend.

In the 2015 presidential election, for example, Duda began as a rank outsider against PO-backed incumbent Bronisław Komorowski, whom every pre-election opinion poll suggested was on course to win an easy victory. However, the opinion poll gap closed quickly and dramatically at the end of the campaign with Duda emerging victorious.

Trzaskowski’s right-wing pivot

PiS is portraying Trzaskowski as the embodiment of the aloof anti-clerical liberal urban elites who have little understanding of, and look down upon, the inhabitants of small-town provincial Poland.

In order to mobilise its right-wing traditionalist core electorate in rural areas, where election turnout is traditionally lower, the party has continually reminded voters that Trzaskowski’s administration banned the display of religious symbols, including crosses, from Warsaw city offices.

While this went down well in the liberal and relatively secular capital, to win a presidential election Trzaskowski will also need to appeal to more socially conservative Poles living beyond the large metropolitan areas.

Consequently, Trzaskowski’s campaign has worked hard to preempt this narrative and shake off claims that he is a liberal extremist. His campaign has been characterised by a very noticeable conservative pivot in an attempt to break with his liberal cosmopolitan image.

Launching his candidacy last December, Trzaskowski included numerous references to defending tradition, the interests of Polish farmers, border security, and “responsible” migration and climate policy.

When discussing inequalities, he referred primarily to socio-economic disparities between different Polish regions, barely mentioning women, and completely ignoring sexual minorities. On the economy, Trzaskowski has said that it is time to be guided by so-called “economic patriotism”. His first campaign visits avoided larger urban agglomerations in favour of smaller provincial towns and rural areas.

To preempt Law and Justice attempts to portray him as anti-clerical, Trzaskowski visited the graves of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko – the chaplain of the Solidarity trade union who was murdered by communist security services officers and is a figure more generally associated with the conservative right – and Father Józef Tischner, closer to liberal Catholic circles but also a highly respected moral philosopher.

Trzaskowski clashed with left-wing education minister Barbara Nowacka stating that her proposal for mandatory health (including sex) education classes in schools, which drew heavy criticism from the church, should be optional, forcing her to back down.

Trzaskowski also tried to come across as less elitist by being seen in contexts outside his metropolitan liberal comfort zone. For example, he met with Zenek Martyniuk, a star of the disco polo music genre which is very popular in Poland’s smaller towns and rural areas, and who was heavily promoted by Polish state TV during the period of PiS rule.

Trzaskowski also called upon the government to limit the eligibility of the 800+ child benefit (paid monthly to every family regardless of income) to only those Ukrainians that actively contribute to the Polish economy, which shocked some liberal commentators but was actually in tune with public opinion, including many PO voters.

Trzaskowski’s nightmare scenario

However, there are also risks associated with Trzaskowski’s sudden right-wing pivot. Firstly, he could end up demobilising his own more socially and culturally liberal core supporters. For sure, the Polish political scene is deeply polarised and they are very unlikely to switch to Nawrocki, but some of them may decide to simply sit out the presidential election.

Moreover, the fact that Trzaskowski has been widely associated with social liberal policies and causes, risks making voters question his honesty and authenticity. These qualities still count even in a modern political scene dominated by candidates who develop carefully targeted messages based on opinion poll and focus group findings.

Indeed, given the personalised nature of a presidential election, arguably questions of credibility and authenticity are even more important here than they are in parliamentary ones. Trzaskowski could end up with the worst of both worlds: alienating his core urban liberal voters while failing to convince more conservative rural ones that his right-wing pivot is really credible.

However, Trzaskowski’s bigger problem is the fact that most Poles feel that the Tusk government has failed to deliver key reforms and lacks a policy agenda beyond holding its predecessor to account for alleged abuses of power.

Trzaskowski’s great advantage in the last presidential election was that, although he was one of the party’s deputy leaders and previously held ministerial posts, in the minds of many voters he was not too closely associated with the previous PO-led governments because, as Warsaw mayor, he was not immersed in day-to-day political struggles. This time he will find it much more difficult to escape societal discontent with the Tusk administration.

The nightmare scenario for Trzaskowski, and not a wholly unlikely one, is if the government’s approval ratings fall even further and the presidential election turns into a referendum on the Tusk administration.

This is exacerbated by the fact that, as his critics argue, Trzaskowski often gives the impression that he lacks his own broader political vision for presidency. “Closure of the system” is not an election-winning slogan and, they argue, Trzaskowski needs to develop a different and more positive campaign message.

Another referendum on PiS?

In fact, Trzaskowski’s lead was always likely to fall, and his opponent’s support increase, as the election campaign got into its swing.

As a relatively fresh and new political figure, Nawrocki was bound to evoke greater media interest as soon as his candidature was announced. His poll boost was also based, in part at least, on the fact that PiS core supporters simply became aware that he was the party’s candidate.

Moreover, although there is growing discontent with the government, Nawrocki has not yet been able to articulate and channel this effectively. Trzaskowski’s supporters point out that Nawrocki is not even matching PiS’s current level of opinion poll support – 33% according to the Politico Europe aggregator.

Indeed, although he is theoretically a non-partisan “civic” candidate, Nawrocki has failed to open himself up enough to new voters by challenging the stereotypes that they associate with the conservative right, as Duda did, to some extent at least, when he was first elected in 2015.

Trzaskowski’s supporters also believe that, with Nawrocki as the party’s candidate, it will be much easier to turn the election into a referendum on whether its PiS predecessor should return to office. This is much more favourable ground for Trzaskowski, who hopes to rekindle the huge electoral mobilisation that led to a decisive rejection of PiS in 2023.

Indeed, the fact that, unlike in 2015, the presidential election is being held at the end, not the beginning, of the electoral cycle should make it easier for Trzaskowski to mobilise government supporters around the idea of “one more heave” to finally remove the last vestiges of PiS’s legacy.

Still on track to win?

There are even some indications that Nawrocki’s initial momentum may have slowed somewhat, and that Trzaskowski could possibly start to benefit from a “Nawrocki runs out of steam” narrative.

Indeed, in spite of his fall in support, Trzaskowski starts from a very high base. He has the whole government machine, and most of the media and cultural establishment, behind him. Given that much of PiS’s parliamentary election refund and state party funding are being withheld following controversy within the National Electoral Commission (PKW), he is also likely to considerably outspend Nawrocki.

So Trzaskowski still remains broadly on track to win. Nonetheless, these are still relatively early days and the voters who are likely to determine the outcome of what will no doubt be a very closely-fought election are probably not really paying much attention to it at the moment.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Flickr/European Union/CHRISTOPHE LICOPPE (under CC BY 2.0)

Aleks Szczerbiak is Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex. The original version of this article appeared here.