The presidential election in Poland began this morning, the first round, in which 28,9 million registered voters will vote on whether to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government a free hand to restore the independence of the judiciary and the media, punish the corruption of the previous government, and strengthen European alliances instead of blindly relying on the United States (US), or whether to continue to undermine this with his veto by the new conservative president.
At 32.143 polling stations, Poles will choose between 21 candidates by 13 p.m., and if none of them wins over 50 percent of the vote, the two candidates with the most votes will go to a second round in 14 days.
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The latest polls predict a sure second round, as the lead of the favorite, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Tchaskowski, has shrunk from the initial 10 to 12 percent over his main rival, the director of the Institute of National Remembrance, Karol Nawrocki, the candidate of the Polish conservatives, in April to just five to six percent now.
Radical nationalist candidate Slavomir Mencen could also potentially get involved in the election race, playing openly on the card of xenophobia and anti-Ukrainian sentiments, promising a complete ban on abortion, and presenting himself as a young dynamic force against the establishment from both the heads of the Civic Platform party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the conservative nationalists, Law and Justice of former Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński.
The issue of security and defense against a possible attack or hybrid war by Russia is not a campaign topic this time, and Polish Prime Minister Tusk has done much to wrest from conservatives and the extremist right a narrative that exploits Poles' fears for political gain, such as the attitude towards refugees and immigrants, anti-Ukrainian sentiment, and the fear that Ukrainian food supplies will endanger the Polish countryside.
At the end of the campaign, both Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda appealed to Poles to vote in as many numbers as possible, with the same argument that this time, not only the head of state is being elected, but with Russian aggression in Ukraine, the supreme commander of the armed forces, but above all, the direction in which Poland will go.
The Prime Minister is appealing to Poles, as in the 2023 parliamentary elections, to support the restoration of the rule of law, which is currently going poorly, as long as Poland is led by an opposition president who vetoes all laws, or sends them to the Constitutional Court, which controls the previous government.
The President urges Poles to elect a president who will preserve all the reforms of the eight years of government of conservative nationalists Jarosław Kaczyński, due to whose authoritarian elements, institutions and media placed under government control, and the threatened independence of the judiciary, Poland has been in dispute with the European Union for years and has had some of its funds frozen.
Nawrocki promises that if Poles elect him, together with like-minded people, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or Romanian nationalists, modeled after Trump's MAGA movement in the US and the methods of this American administration, they will change the European Union under the slogan MEGA (Make Europe Great Again).
The Law and Justice party managed to secure at least a photo of its candidate with Trump in the White House in early May, and is spreading the story that Trump told him "you will win" and also a ten-second courtesy greeting with American officials at a reception, including with State Department chief Marco Rubio, and portraying it as important conversations.
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Polish television will publish the first forecast of the outcome immediately after the polls close, and the final results should be known on Monday.
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