First round on Sunday with Prime Minister Tusk hoping to dominate a president he will be able to work with, overcoming the obstacles that Andrei Dunda has to date.

On May 18, voters in Poland will not only decide whether the next president of the country will be the left-liberal Rafal Tzaskovsky or the national-conservative Carol Navrotsky. The outcome of the elections will also determine whether the pro -European government of Donald Tusk can overcome the exclusion it is facing from the Presidential Palace and who has paralyzed its work since it took over its duties a year and a half ago.

The leader of the Polish state is not as much power as the French or the US president, but much more than the German federal president, who has mainly representative and customary duties. With the right veto it, the Polish president, who is directly elected by the people, can block the government’s legislative proposals. It also has the overall supervision of the Armed Forces, has a say in foreign policy and can submit its own bills.

Recovered hopes for reforms

When Tusk’s Coalition overturned Yaroslav Katsinsky’s National Conservative Party (PIS) from power in December 2023 after eight years, the hopes of a rapid democratic recovery were high. During the election campaign, the liberal-conservative forces had promised to restore the rule of law, the liberalization of abortion laws and more rights to homosexuals. They also wanted to reform public media and consider the politicians accused of corruption and abuse of power accountable.

Soon, however, it became clear that most of the reform attempts failed due to the resistance of the National Conservative President. Andrei Dundas uses the right to negativity or refers to government legislative proposals to the Constitutional Court, which consists of PIS supporters. After a year and a half, the Tusk government report is average. Frustration and discontent are spreading across the country – even among the key voters of the coalition parties.

For Tusk is a matter of life and death

“Presidential Palace or Death,” wrote Newsweek journalist Yacek Gandek after the launch of the election campaign last fall. “Tusk knows that everything depends on the outcome of this battle.” As a result, the head of the government sent his left-wing-liberal colleague to the party, Rafal Tzaskovsky, as a promising candidate.

The Mayor of Warsaw had already run a candidate against Dunda five years ago and had lost marginally. In the repetitive round of the elections, he lost to the conservative candidate with 48.97% against 51.03%. Despite his relatively young age for Polish data, the 53 -year -old can remember a long political career. He has served as Minister of Digital Affairs, a member of the European Parliament and as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, responsible for European politics. Has ruled in the capital of Poland since 2018.

What do polls say

Tzaskovsky belongs to the left wing of the party’s political platform. It supports liberal laws on abortions that allow abortions until the 12th week of pregnancy and has removed crosses from the offices at the Town Hall. As one of the few politicians in Poland, he defends EU climate policy. A few days before the election, it is preceded by polls, although its lead has shrunk to a few percentage points in recent weeks.

His main opponent is Carol Navrotsky. The 42 -year -old Gdansk historian is led by the Institute of National Memory (IPN), the Polish version of the most inactive Stazi Archive Service. PIS leader, Katsinsky, sent the right nationalist activist to the presidential race as a “candidate”. His calculation: Navrotsky will also win right -wing voters outside the PIS environment, because he is not considered a PIS’s “peer”, such as former Prime Minister Mateus Moravietski.

Tangled in scandals

But this calculation does not seem to work – Navrotsky’s popularity remains lower than PIS popularity rates, because even many party members do not know the candidate at all. Journalists’ investigation also shows that he had contacts with the underworld. And shortly before the election day, he was involved in a real estate scandal.

His opponents accused him of fraudulently acquiring a municipal district. At pre -election rallies, Navrotsky attacks immigrants against the EU green agreement and against Brussels. It calls for a restriction of aid to Ukraine and cultivates the image of Germany as an enemy. “I will not be a servant, no servant of Germany,” he assures. PIS accuses Tusk of being a “German agent”.

Trump and Simon as assistants in the elections

The Navrotsky election campaign team used its good contact with Republicans in the US to get a photo with US President Donald Trump at the Oval Office. “You will win” – it is said that Trump told him. The right -wing populist winner of the first round of the presidential election in Romania, Jorda Simon, also traveled to Poland to help his Polish peculiar. At a gathering in Zambrze in Ano Silesia on Tuesday, May 13, the two politicians announced their intention to build a “Europe of Homeland”. “We will not allow the EU to turn Poland and Romania into administrative regions (of the EU),” Navrotsky explained.

Underdog the far -right candidate?

For a while it seemed that Slavomir Mentzen, the far -right confederation candidate, could be a threat to Navrotsky. In several studies in March 2025, Mencen approached or even overcame Navrotsky. Now it has fallen to just below 12%.

The 38 -year -old tax and businessman is touring Poland since last fall and boasts that he has completed more than 340 events of his election campaign. It is particularly evident on social media – it has 1.6 million followers in Tiktok.

Mencen’s program consists of criticism of political reality, healthcare and retirement systems, while in Europe it attacks immigration policy and “green agreement”.

Its radical slogans are particularly attracted to young people – school teens are disproportionate to its events. Mentzen accuses Kacinsky’s PIS and the platform of Tusk’s citizens of all the country’s problems and speaks critical of the “dipole” – the dominance of the two. This view is shared by many of the 13 candidates who participate in next Sunday’s elections.

To a second round

The rivalry between Tusk and Katsinsky has shaped Polish history over the last 20 years. It sometimes rules one party (PIS: 2005-2007 and 2015-2023) and sometimes the other (citizens’ platform: 2007-2015 and from 2023). There is not much room for other factions. Unless something unexpected happens, the presidential race will not be judged in the first round, but in the repeat round between Tzaskovsky and Navrotsky on June 1st.

Polls show the left -liberal candidate preceded – but he cannot be sure of his victory. Will all the voters of the parties who form the government coalition of Tzaskovsky or will they stay home? And what will Mencen’s voters do in the second round? Tusk will have to wait until the last ballot is counted.

Curated by: Costas Argyros