President Duda announces support for opposition candidate Nawrocki as his successor

Apr 27, 2025 | Politics

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

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.

President Andrzej Duda has announced his support for Karol Nawrocki, the candidate backed by the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, in next month’s presidential election, the winner of which will succeed Duda when his second and final term ends in August.

Although Duda is himself aligned with the national-conservative PiS, until now he has refused to endorse any candidate. Last year, he said that, as president, it would not be appropriate for him to support anyone standing in the election.

However, on Sunday, Duda made a surprise appearance at a Nawrocki campaign rally in the city of Łódź, at which he announced: “I, Andrzej Duda, who have the same rights as you to go to these elections and vote, will vote for Karol Nawrocki in these elections.”

He said that he was doing so because “because I believe that he [Nawrocki] is a man who will strive to do everything to make Poland an honest and strong state”, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Since PiS lost power in December 2023, Duda, who has served as president since 2015, has been a vocal opponent of the new government, a more liberal coalition led by former European Council President Donald Tusk. He has used his powers as president to block significant parts of Tusk’s agenda.

The government hopes that the election of a more friendly president this year – such as Rafał Trzaskowski of Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, who is the current frontrunner – would finally allow it to carry out its planned reforms. However, a Nawrocki victory would result in a continued stalemate.

At his speech today, Duda called on his supporters “to mobilise just like you did in 2015 and 2020” – the years in which Duda won successive presidential election victories, in the latter case in a run-off against Trzaskowski.

“Honesty must win,” and not the “cynicism and slyness” of the Tusk government, said the president. “Go out and support. We must win. A free and fair Poland must win. Long live Poland.”

Duda’s words mark a stark change from his position, expressed in the early stages of campaigning for the election, that as president it would not be appropriate for him to endorse any candidate.

“The president of Poland is not in a position to provide official support to any candidate,” he said last November. In February this year, Duda’s chief of staff, Marcin Mastalerek, said that the president “will not help anyone in the election campaign”.

Trzaskowski has been the frontrunner in the campaign, coming first in every single poll so far, with Nawrocki in second place based on polling averages.

However, the gap has closed this month, with Trzaskowski falling from around 36% support in early April to an average of around 32% now. Nawrocki, meanwhile, has risen from 22% to 28% over the same period, according to averages compiled by the eWybory website.

The first round of the election takes place on 18 May. To win outright, a candidate needs to secure over 50% of votes. If, as expected, no one is able to achieve that, the two most popular candidates will proceed to a second-round run-off on 1 June.

Weekly average of support in polls for the main candidates in Poland’s 2025 presidential election, compiled by ewybory.eu


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: Marcin Stepien / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Pin It on Pinterest

Support us!