Electoral Analyses
mai 28, 2025By Cristian Preda, University of Bucharest.
This article was first published in the review Comunitatea liberală 1848 on the 26th May 2025. Link to the original article in Romanian: Cea mai grea problemă pentru noul președinte – Comunitatea Liberala.
Ion Iliescu was born in 1930, Emil Constantinescu nine years later, Traian Băsescu saw the light of day in 1951, and Klaus Iohannis in 1959. Nicușor Dan is ten years younger than his predecessor. The numbers speak for themselves: the new president belongs to a different generation. The one that took to the streets during the Revolution. In other words, those times recounted in “The New Year That Never Was.” Times that the young people voting for the first time now know very little about, since they were born the same year, their country joined the EU. I recently overheard two of them talking on a trolleybus: one claimed that Romania had been part of the USSR, while the other tried to convince him that the “communist bloc” included several states, and that the RPR and RSR were never Soviet republics.
N. Dan’s term will end shortly after we mark forty years since the fall of Ceaușescu. That is, when the number of years since the Revolution will roughly equal the duration of the communist regime. Or around the hundredth anniversary of Iliescu’s birth. But I’m not writing these lines just to point out how short a century can seem. Rather, to highlight the fact that the main political issue Nicușor Dan will face is very different from those his predecessors confronted.
Indeed, Iliescu had to manage the (re)birth of democratic parties; Constantinescu embodied the double alternation of power; under Băsescu, political parties were integrated into the European networks of conservatives, socialists, and liberals; and the Iohannis decade saw the rise of party cartelization — parties that had brought Romania into NATO and the EU, now seeking, as a reward, at least two uninterrupted decades in power. N. Dan disrupted that dream.
But the fifth president now faces a challenge that Western politicians first encountered in the mid-1990s or early 2000s: the backlash against the cartelization of pro-European and pro-Atlanticist parties — a process that, in Romania, began in 2016. Nicușor Dan was himself part of the anti-cartel movement in 2016, as founder of USR. But USR is not the only party that has, in recent years, resisted the attempt by the NATO- and EU-era establishment parties to dominate the political scene: the PSD–PNL duopoly has been challenged by AUR, as well as splinter parties from that ultranationalist formation, led by D. Șoșoacă and A. Gavrilă.
As president, N. Dan now faces a difficult choice. In other EU member states, delegitimizing cartel parties has drastically reshaped the political landscape: Italy’s Christian Democrats and Communists disappeared; in Germany, the two-and-a-half party system (CDU–CSU, SPD, plus the “half” of the Liberals) gave way to one that includes the Greens, Die Linke, and AfD; in France, the Gaullists and Socialists have been decimated, the far left and far right run rampant, and Macron’s centrist party is forced to build coalitions with a growing number of mini-parties; in the Netherlands and Belgium, the far right has become the main political force, and so on.
Lacking a party of his own, the new president must build a government that takes into account both the anti-system vote (Romania’s shorthand for opposition to cartel politics) and the extreme fragmentation of the political spectrum, now composed of eight distinct factions (PSD, AUR, PNL, USR, UDMR, SOS Romania, POT, the group of national minorities other than the Hungarian one). N. Dan cannot ignore the clearly pro-Western stance expressed in the presidential election, nor the need for stability after the Iohannis decade, during which nine prime ministers rotated through Victoria Palace. He must also weigh the immense cost of snap elections, the need to restore Romania’s credibility with international creditors, and the urgent necessity of containing political extremism — which now blends Ceaușism and Legionary rhetoric with Putinism and Trumpism.
The choice he makes in shaping a new government border on tragic — in the sense Robert Kaplan gives the term in his most recent book, also published in Romanian by Humanitas. If PSD is included in the new majority, power alternation will lose its meaning; if USR joins the three parties from the Ciolacu cabinet, then anti-system voices will be confined exclusively to the sovereigntist camp. A minority government might result in nothing more than patchwork governance, liable to unravel quickly, while a technocratic formula could see the parties competing in populism and isolating the president completely.
The most difficult challenge for Romania’s fifth president is to define the kind of majority he wants to build. Because he may very well need resources that he currently doesn’t have.
I discussed this process in the essay “A New Faked Democracy?” included in the volume I edited for Humanitas, titled How Romania Ended Up Without an Elected President. 7 Possible Answers.
Robert Kaplan, The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power, translated by Iustin Mureșanu-Ignat, Humanitas, 2025.
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Cristian Preda is a professor in political science at the University of Bucharest and a former MEP (2009-2019). His research areas are large, from political regimes, to political history, elections and party politics. […]
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mai 23, 2025By Claudia Bădulescu, Free University of Brussels, Institute of European Studies.
Eighteen years after joining the European Union, Romania has shown, again, why its place is inside the European family. On 18 May the independent, pro-European mathematician-turned-mayor Nicușor Dan defeated George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), overturning a 20-point first-round gap and ending months of breath-holding across the continent. This morning, 22 May, Romania’s Constitutional Court met in solemn session and unanimously confirmed Nicușor Dan’s victory, formally declaring him the country’s new president. With a final tally of 6,168,642 votes (53.60 %) to George Simion’s 5,339,053 (46.40 %), the Court’s validation brings the presidential contest to an unambiguous close and opens the next chapter of Romania’s democracy. And yet, before the champagne has even gone flat, Moscow’s echo-chambers are buzzing with fury, fake news and fresh conspiracies, as Russia’s hybrid war for destabilising Romania – and Central and Eastern Europe – still rages.
From November’s Annulment to May’s Miracle
To understand why this election felt existential, rewind six months. In November 2024 Romania’s first presidential round was annulled after security services traced a storm of coordinated disinformation, troll-farm amplification and opaque financing back to actors linked to the Kremlin. The decision removed the far-right influencer Călin Georgescu from the race and plunged the country into a constitutional crisis. Simion – already building a TikTok empire of grievance, orthodoxy and “Romania first” – MAGA-like slogans – presented himself as Georgescu’s political heir. On 4 May, in the rescheduled first round, Simion captured more than 40% of the vote, while Dan scraped into the run-off with barely 21%. Many analysts were convinced Dan faced a mission-impossible: in just two weeks he would have to erase a 20% difference – representing roughly 1.8-million-vote deficit left over from the first round.
But the live Euronews debate on 8 May – just hours before Europe Day – flipped the momentum. That evening Dan faced Simion in a four-hour debate that became viral proof-of-concept for patience, policy and factual politics. Women, urban voters, minorities and, critically, older Romanians who remember both Ceaușescu and Soviet tanks, began to swing in favour of Dan. Mass civic mobilisation rewrote the script on 18 May: participation vaulted from 53% in the first round to a shade above 64% in the runoff – a historic record – as people showed up determined to block the extremist and steer Romania back to the European mainstream.
Kremlin Rage, Telegram Whispers
The victory did not go down quietly in Moscow. Within hours, Russia’s foreign-ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova sneered that the 18 May ballot ‘can hardly be called an election’. Kremlin press-secretary Dmitri Peskov deemed the result “at least curious”, adding that ‘the candidate with the best chance of winning was simply forced out of the race – no attempt was even made to justify it. Putin-ally Aleksandr Dugin fumed that ‘President Macron openly intervened in Romania’s vote’ and urged Europeans to stage a revolution against what he called the EU’s ‘liberal dictatorship’. Even Telegram founder Pavel Durov chimed in, alleging French intelligence had pressured him to “silence” pro-Simion channels – an easy claim to toss into an online ecosystem primed to equate content moderation with tyranny.
These narratives were not organic. Romanian fact-checkers counted thousands of near-identical posts and AI-generated videos in the 48 hours after polls closed: claims of artificially stuffed ballot boxes, of “French agents” infiltrated Romania, doctored screenshots or videos purporting to show Dan at Masonic or Jewish events. Facebook groups that had simmered for months on vaccine hoaxes suddenly re-branded into election-denial hubs. AUR activists amplified them, then cited the resulting frenzy in their Constitutional Court complaint asking for the annulment of the presidential elections – one the Court tossed as legally void this morning. The episode fits the classic Russian military intelligence (GRU) disruptive operations playbook: deny, disorient, disrupt, amplify, repeat.
Why does the Kremlin care so much about a mid-size EU state that spends under 2 % of GDP on defense? Geography and symbolism. Romania sits on NATO’s eastern flank, shares the Black Sea with Russia and acts as Kyiv’s most reliable logistical back door. Toppling an EU-minded president, or merely paralyzing him, would reverberate from Chişinău to Warsaw, and beyond. Disrupting elections also inoculates Moscow’s domestic audience against democratic ideas: see, they’re all rigged anyway.
The May operation in Romania failed, but two hard truths remain: the social-media battlespace is still porous to disinformation, and economic frustration is still pervasive. Exit-poll data show that voters with vocational education, residents of poorer counties and many men aged 31-60 went overwhelmingly for Simion. They did so not because they crave a Slavic protectorate, but because salaries lag behind EU averages and clinics crumble while elites argue over procurement codes. Populism will continue to harvest that anger unless policies for improving infrastructure, education, health services, and rule-of-law enforcement meet it head-on.
A Five-Point Campaign for the Long War
Winning one election is not a vaccine; it is a breathing space. Five fronts matter now:
Harden the information space. Romania must implement full DSA enforcement: rapid takedown mechanisms, transparent political-ad libraries, fines that sting. Brussels should help Romania to implement EU-sponsored digital-literacy drives aimed at rural voters and diaspora groups alike.
Follow the money and the message. The National Integrity Agency should not stop at identifying who wired the three-million-euro splash into Realitatea TV or bankrolled the avalanche of AUR’s campaign letters. It must also audit how those funds were spent: on bot farms, TikTok micro-influencers, and prime-time “analysts” who recycle Kremlin talking-points about NATO, anticorruption and the war in Ukraine. Democracy can tolerate and overcome ugly speech; it cannot survive a covert business model that monetises disinformation.
Deliver visible projects. Dan’s technocratic reputation buys him a hundred-day ‘honeymoon’. He must deploy EU Cohesion funds for county-hospital upgrades, digital cadasters and pothole-free national roads – projects that people can touch before the 2026 local elections.
Re-engage the diaspora constructively. Nearly 55% of Romanians voting abroad chose Simion, most of them being based in Western European countries. Many feel abandoned by consulates, gouged by fees and mocked by mainland media. An honest outreach strategy – through more dialogue and opportunities to return to Romania – can chip away at resentment.
Maintain the civic coalition. NGOs, liberal parties, ethnic-minority associations and business federations that rallied for Dan must stay networked, not dissolve into familiar micro-feuds. The next test could be parliamentary elections or a disinformation spike over Ukraine. Preparedness beats improvisation.
Europe Day, Every Day
These presidential elections framed the choice starkly: either in favour of Romania’s European integration as a liberal democracy, or a mirage of Ro-exit meant to install a sort of “sovereignty” scripted in Moscow. Romanian voters chose Europe and democracy – again. Yet Russia’s power in the region has never relied on majority support; it thrives on confusion, exhaustion and on a populist bloc ready to chant Russian propaganda. Battling these tendencies is a marathon, not a sprint. The good news is that a civic immune system clearly exists, and Romania’s democracy works better than ever. It mobilized 11 million Romanians to elect between a math prodigy and a TikTok populist. They made the right choice. Now the task is to keep that immune system healthy and safe. Just because we won the battle of 18 May, it does not mean that Russia’s hybrid war came to an end. Nicușor Dan’s win was a sharp defeat for Moscow, but new disinformation waves are already forming. We must fight every day – on every screen and in every conversation – to keep Romania, and the region, anchored in an open, democratic and rules-based Europe. Democracy survives not through one heroic Sunday, but through millions of small acts of attention every day. We need to stay vigilant, sceptical, yet engaged. Miracles do happen, but they take time, patience, and sustained effort.
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Claudia Bădulescu is a post-doctoral researcher at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), linked to the Institute of European Studies (IEE). Her research explores the administrative reforms and the democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. She also works on the european integration process. […]
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mai 19, 2025By Cristian Preda, University of Bucharest.
This article was first published in the review Comunitatea liberală 1848 on the 19th May 2025. Link to the original article in Romanian: Mândri că suntem europeni. MAGA ar face bine să nu mai mizeze în UE pe marionetele lui Putin – Comunitatea Liberala.
Nicușor Dan secured a clear victory in the May 18th election after running a strong campaign in which his opponent made numerous missteps.
Truth be told, G. Simion wasn’t up to the fight. He ran off after a first face-to-face debate in which he was clearly outmatched by the mayor of Bucharest. He acted arrogantly, claiming it was his opponent who had to chase after him. From there, he came up with all kinds of excuses to dodge further debates. He traveled to several countries to meet with fellow populist leaders, hoping to look like part of a broader European revolt against EU institutions. Reckless statements complemented his disappearance from the public eye, along with photos taken alongside other far-right extremists. When he wasn’t announcing plans to fire 500,000 public servants or halt all aid to Ukraine, Simion embarrassed himself by telling Parisian journalists that France is a dictatorship like Iran and that the country might vanish in 20–30 years because the French apparently have nothing better to do than change children’s genders.
Simion’s detachment from reality was stunning. The AUR candidate stuck to his line that he would “bring justice” so that Georgescu could become president. Even as polls closed, he insisted that it wasn’t him or N. Dan who had won — but Georgescu. We leave behind a campaign in which irrationality was applauded.
Fortunately, most of the public remained clear-headed. Some woke up only in the second round — that’s the best explanation for the extraordinary turnout among the diaspora. Yesterday, no fewer than 1.64 million out of the total 11.6 million voters cast their ballots at nearly a thousand polling stations abroad. As this trend emerged, it wasn’t clear whether Simion had any fresh supporters abroad, or whether he’d already burned through them in the first round, where he captured 60% of the vote. Ultimately, most of those who voted only in the second round were people determined to block the ultra-nationalist drift. A special mention goes to the voters in the Republic of Moldova: nearly 160,000 Moldovans holding Romanian citizenship cast their votes and overwhelmingly backed N. Dan. For them, it was easy to spot Simion for what he is — a Kremlin puppet.
It’s also worth noting that political parties played a minor role in this campaign. That should give both the old guard and the newcomers something to think about. Nicușor Dan is the first independent to win the most complex political contest in the country. He is also the third mayor — after Traian Băsescu and Klaus Iohannis — to reach the presidency. This confirms that the public tends to favor local political figures over prime ministers or parliamentarians — people who can’t hide behind their mandates, and must either deliver or fail publicly.
There’s much to be said about campaign financing, how the media and electoral institutions managed the elections, and so on — but there will be time for such analysis.
What matters now is a return to rational governance.
The first priority is forming an executive. The new president will be the architect of the governing majority. It’s highly likely that the PNL, USR, and UDMR will cooperate. It’s less clear whether the PSD will want to stay in power without naming the prime minister. The internal crisis brewing in that party — made worse by Ciolacu’s ostrich-like strategy in the final round — threatens to trigger political tremors. Let’s hope they don’t lead to early elections. That’s the last thing we need right now.
There’s also a need for a budget that takes into account the deficit caused by Ciolacu’s recklessness, the constraints of international financial markets, confidence in the national currency, the urgency of tapping into what’s left of the EU recovery funds (PNRR), and the decisions set to come from next month’s NATO summit regarding defense spending for the next 2–3 years.
Third, the new president carries a heavy burden: reconciliation. The societal tension generated by nationalist outbursts, an excessively long electoral period, the near-total abandonment of the anti-corruption fight, and the political involvement of gangsters, mercenaries, and Russian operatives must be defused—with tact, patience, and dialogue.
Finally, N. Dan’s victory is yet another failure for MAGA’s European forays — this time, backing a candidate openly aligned with the Kremlin. The naïveté of the American president and the ignorance of his advisers regarding European affairs have led to the paradoxical situation where the Republican administration supported far-right parties in Europe during the early months of Trump’s second term. The failure of their support for AfD in Germany should’ve served as a wake-up call in Washington. It didn’t. So here we are, in Bucharest, with Trump’s envoy to Greenland and the Greenlandic bricklayer who leads the movement to sell that Danish territory to the U.S.
MAGA would do well to stop betting in Europe on figures who understand democratic politics about as well as I understand the Greenlandic language.
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Cristian Preda is a professor in political science at the University of Bucharest and a former MEP (2009-2019). His research areas are large, from political regimes, to political history, elections and party politics. […]
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mai 16, 2025By Michał Kuryłowicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland.
Poland’s presidential campaign is nearing the end of its first round. Although the most important candidates were already known last December, its full momentum came five weeks before the date of elections. Of course, it was to be expected that it would be the finale of the race for Poland’s presidential seat that would prove to be the most hotly contested, with most excitement expected after the TV debate with all the candidates, set for May 12. In the meantime, however, the previous pattern, in which public television is the platform for exchanging blows between all the candidates, has been broken. Rafal Trzaskowski’s spontaneous proposal to his main rival Karol Nawrocki in early April to duel in front of the cameras of major television centers set off a whole avalanche of unexpected reactions. Other participants in the race reacted immediately, including Szymon Holownia, who announced that he would appear at the site of the planned debate.
Much about the specifics of the Polish elections is told by the location of the said duel. Rafał Trzaskowski invited Karol Nawrocki to Końskie. This small town in central Poland became a symbol of the key to electoral success years ago thanks to the words of one Civic Platform politician: « Elections are won in Końskie. » Arguably, Trzaskowski wanted this way to break the impotence of the liberal elites, who cyclically perform poorly in the provinces, concentrating their support in large agglomerations. However, that idea backfired for several reasons. Already the ignoring of the other eleven candidates was resisted by them and poorly received by the public. What’s more – the private TV station Republika, which is associated with the Law and Justice milieu and was omitted from the duel’s organizers, also protested against the debate formula. Representatives of this medium put forward the idea of organizing their own debate with the participation of all candidates, also in Końskie, two hours before the originally scheduled duel between Trzaskowski and Nawrocki. Trzaskowski thus suffered a double defeat. He ruled himself out of the confrontation on Republika TV (which he accuses, as does Left candidate Magdalena Biejat, of violating journalistic standards), while at the same time he had to accommodate the participation of all other participants in the electoral race in « his » debate. The cumulative confrontation in Konskie, which lasted six hours, turned out to be a victory for the less important participants in the race, especially Szymon Holownia and Magdalena Biejat. These politicians, representing the smaller partners of the current ruling coalition, showed their clarity. Szymon Holownia is helped by his extensive media experience. Magdalena Biejat, on the other hand, was able to take the leftist arguments out of Rafal Trzaskowski’s hands. This is symbolically demonstrated by her taking over the flag of the LGBT community, handed to a restrained Rafał Trzaskowski by Karol Nawrocki during the debate.
The double debate in Konskie has breathed new life into the hitherto inconspicuous campaign of the Law and Justice-backed candidate. Karol Nawrocki has clearly improved his preparation for media appearances in the meantime. Nawrocki’s ratings began to move upward after April 11, approaching Law and Justice’s poll support (25-28%). Thus was resolved the main « duel » of the first stage of the electoral race: who would enter the second round of elections as Rafal Trzaskowski’s challenger. After April 11, it became clear that the potential of the Confederation’s representative, Slawomir Mentzen, had been largely exhausted. His strength has so far been in confronting only those who support him at election meetings, without needing to enter into an argument. However, the final weeks of the campaign were dominated by media interviews and the aforementioned debates, in which Mentzen performed unconvincingly. His ratings dropped to 11-15%. Karol Nawrocki’s staff, on the other hand, clearly buoyed by success in Konskie, tried to discount this success. In late April, Nawrocki traveled to the United States and soon the media circulated a joint photo of him with Donald Trump, who was supposed to say the words to Nawrocki « You’ll win. »
The meetings in Końskie initiated a real festival of live televised debates (by May 12 there were five similar confrontations). Although both Rafal Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki were well prepared for each successive one, the main winner of the aforementioned marathon turned out to be representatives of left-wing groups. Voters only realized in April that there were as many as three candidates of social-democratic groups in the presidential race, who are capable not only of effectively attacking the main contenders, but also of entering into interesting and program-based discussions among themselves. It’s paradoxical, but both Magdalena Biejat, who defended her participation in a government coalition with little of the Left’s program, were received in an authentic way. Adrian Zandberg was similarly persuasive, explaining why his Together (Razem) grouping had moved into opposition to the government. The real hit of the debates turned out to be Joanna Senyszyn, who so far has marginal support. This politician, the oldest participant in the electoral race at 76 years old, paradoxically found it easiest to gain contact with the youngest part of the election observers. As it seems, her strength is the spontaneity of her statements, differentiating her from the smooth formulas served by the main contenders for the presidential seat, prepared by the electoral staffs. Moreover, Joanna Senyszyn clearly dissociates herself from the main axis of the political division of the last two decades (Law and Justice vs. PO). This was evident in the light-heartedness of her reaction to the hostile right-wing audience of the Republic TV debate. It is also evident in the language of her speech, which recalls the less polarized Polish reality before 2005. Paradoxically, therefore, it was Senyszyn, identified with the post-communist left of the 1990s, who managed to win the favor of the youth. She has become the heroine of Internet memes favorable to her, while her statements reach viral status.
At the finish of the campaign, Leftist candidates reach a total of 12-13% support. This does not seem like much, given their number (3), but it is definitely more than their support at the threshold of the campaign and the electoral results of the Left, which was united just a year ago. Clearly, then, the Left is emerging from the long shadow of Donald Tusk’s centrist party.
Both the televised debates and the general focus of the media centers on the election campaign and on individual candidates have restored meaning to discussions about the stability of the Polish political system, based over the past two decades on the rivalry between Civic Platform and Law and Justice, and personally on the showdown between Donald Tusk and Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Just before the first round of elections, it seems that the ability to further sustain the aforementioned polarization is diminishing. The candidates of the two largest parties have a combined support of less than 60% of respondents in the polls, while in 2020, for example, the representatives of this duopoly collected a combined 74% of votes in the first round.
This decline is explained to some extent by the fact that it was not the leaders of the two parties who decided to run for the office of president, delegating to this role persons less prominent in public life (in the case of Karol Nawrocki, even a person not directly associated with a political party). The other parties did the same: the Left Party delegated a less recognizable politician, the Polish People’s Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe) gave up designating its candidate altogether, supporting Szymon Holownia, the leader of the coalition Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), in the election. The Confederation (Konfederacja) did not put forward the far more recognizable Krzysztof Bosak, designating Slawomir Mentzen to take part in the electoral race. Hidden in these decisions is a certain paradox of the Polish political system: presidential elections are the most personalized vote, meanwhile, the head of state thus elected has few significant powers beyond the ability to sign or veto government laws. Thus, presidential elections are every time a test of the popularity of the government and the parties supporting it, and less about a specific candidate.
At the finish of the campaign, political polarization and the tendency to focus attention on the two strongest candidates took the upper hand again. This is well illustrated by the case revealed in recent days by the Onet.pl portal of the apartment, seized years ago in unclear circumstances by Karol Nawrocki from an elderly person, in addition to being in conflict with the law. Of course, this again cast an unfavorable light on the past of the candidate supported by Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość). At the same time, both major parties allowed the focus of attention on the duel between two individuals and two clashing political visions, relegating to the sidelines the attention of the other candidates, still, after all, participating in the presidential election.
Finally, it is worth paying some attention to the strength of the aforementioned polarization. Polish political scientists, including Rafał Chwedoruk (a professor at the University of Warsaw) point out that the stability of this almost two-party political system is the aftermath of Poland’s good economic situation. Over the past two decades, the country has avoided sudden economic shocks, including the 2008 crisis or the pandemic crisis. The Polish economy is showing resilience even to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which has been ongoing for more than three years. In this situation, there is no crisis situation that could shake the support of particular groups of voters for either of the two largest parties and emerge a new party alignment. There is, of course, the « potential » for voter discord with the aforementioned duopoly. This is well illustrated by the successive presidential elections. Beginning in 2005, there was always a candidate who received support above 10% and tried to discount his success by founding a new or strengthening an existing party. This was always accompanied by the hope of breaking the dominance of the Tusk and Kaczynski parties. In 2005 it was Andrzej Lepper of Samoobrona, in 2015 it was Paweł Kukiz (Kukiz ’15), and in 2020 it was Szymon Holownia (Poland 2050). However, the fate of the groupings they created was always similar: they were gradually neutralized and absorbed by the main protagonists of the Polish political scene. If Sunday’s vote differs from the pattern described above, it is mainly due to the lack of a new and fresh candidate who would contend to break up the PIS-PO duopoly. Slawomir Mentzen, who for a while threatened Karol Nawrocki’s second position, has clearly lost in the polls; after all, he represents a grouping that is already well established in the Polish political system. Szymon Holownia, who is given no more than 8% support by polls, has lost the sheen of novelty, an aftermath of his participation in the current government coalition. Perhaps it is for this reason that voter interest in the vote is far lower than in the case of the corresponding election in 2020 or the last parliamentary election of 2023. It is the turnout that is the biggest conundrum of this coming Sunday.
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Michał Kuryłowicz is a researcher at Jagiellonian University, Poland. He is specialized in the study of Eurasian politics with a focus on relations of Eurasian countries towards Russia. He also studies history of the Eurasian region, from Poland to Central Asia. […]
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mai 5, 2025By Cristian Preda, University of Bucharest.
This article was first published in the review Comunitatea liberală 1848 on the 5th of May 2025. Link to the original article in Romanian: E mai rău ca-n noiembrie? Da, un pic, dar poate fi bine… – Comunitatea Liberala.
Yesterday, I went to the polls. The number of voters was slightly higher than on November 24. Not by much, and the increase was recorded abroad. However, it’s not clear whether more people showed up because they were traveling abroad, taking advantage of the May 1st holiday, or if they were new voters, outraged by one thing or another.
The pollsters were way off. We’re used to that. But yesterday, they projected George Simion at 30%, and he ended up with ten percent more. This profession needs serious reform. To be fair, they had the candidates in second and third place neck and neck, which is exactly how it turned out.
What’s most noteworthy, politically speaking, is that the sovereigntist candidate managed to recover all of Călin Georgescu’s voter base and even surpass it slightly: their combined score was 38.5% in November, while now the AUR leader secured 41%.
He will face Nicușor Dan in the runoff, who garnered over a percent and a half more than what Lasconi had gathered five months ago. The gap between him and Crin Antonescu, who finished third, is much wider than what the USR leader had over Ciolacu: it resembles the gap between Băsescu and Geoană in the 2009 final.
The performance of the governing coalition’s candidate was disastrous: despite backing from three parties that had received about 43% in the presidential and legislative elections, he couldn’t even gather half of that now. This is also Iohannis’s fault, of course, since Antonescu’s nomination happened while the former president still had influence over the ruling coalition.
Lasconi came in fifth, receiving even less than what critics who called for her withdrawal had predicted: not even 3%. Her removal from the USR leadership is likely imminent, as her behavior lately has been completely irrational.
The arbiter of the final round will likely be Victor Ponta, the former Social Democratic prime minister who has turned to Trumpism. It’s predictable that he’ll either go for the leadership of PSD or start a new left-wing party, since it’s clear that Prime Minister Ciolacu is completely discredited—after placing third in the November presidential race, he now backed a presidential candidate who wasn’t even from PSD. A perfect chameleon, Ponta could align with either the nationalist camp or the other one, because he has energy to burn.
Negotiations to form a pro-European majority will be complicated not only by Ponta’s position and the campaign jabs between Antonescu and N. Dan, but also—or maybe especially—by uncertainties within the PNL camp. Likely, part of the solution will depend on Bolojan’s skill in navigating the current turbulent waters. He performed very honorably as interim, but it’s clear he would be a major asset to the government as prime minister. That’s a kind of political capital that could be put to great use for “our country,” as he likes to say.
So, we may end up with a showdown between the duos N. Dan – I. Bolojan and G. Simion – C. Georgescu.
I hasten to say I am just as sure the current mayor will become president as I was that he would make it to the runoff.
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Cristian Preda is a professor in political science at the University of Bucharest and a former MEP (2009-2019). His research areas are large, from political regimes, to political history, elections and party politics. […]
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mai 5, 2025By Claudia Bădulescu, Free University of Brussels, Institute of European Studies.
Shortly after one o’clock on the morning of May 5, 2025, the Central Electoral Bureau in Bucharest released near‑final figures from the first round of Romania’s presidential election. They read like the script of an improbable political thriller. George Simion, the thirty‑eight‑year‑old leader of the ultra‑nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), had captured a little over forty per cent of the valid ballots – around 3.6 million votes, more than any extremist candidate has ever received in post‑communist Romania. Reformist capital‑city mayor Nicușor Dan trailed far behind on roughly twenty‑one per cent, his slender advantage over the governing coalition’s veteran nominee Crin Antonescu measured in the tens of thousands. Former prime minister Victor Ponta limped in with thirteen per cent, while the once‑celebrated pro‑European hopeful Elena Lasconi, deserted by her own party, slipped below three per cent.
For seasoned Romania‑watchers the result felt less like an ordinary swing than a tectonic fault opening beneath the political establishment. In the annulled vote of November 2024 Simion had struggled to reach 1.3 million ballots, running as the understudy to hard‑line ideologue Călin Georgescu. Now, five months later, he had single‑handedly exceeded the combined November tally of the entire far‑right camp and opened a yawning 1.8‑million‑vote chasm over Dan. The turnout – just under fifty‑four per cent – was almost identical to last year’s poll, which means the far right did not profit from a sudden electoral surge but from a massive reallocation of disaffected voters.
How Did We Get Here?
Traditional explanations for radical‑right breakthroughs rarely apply cleanly to Romania. The country is not facing a migration crisis; less than two per cent of its resident population are foreign nationals, while millions of Romanians themselves live abroad. The macro‑economy has been expanding steadily – GDP grew 2.7 per cent in 2024 and unemployment hovers near a record low. Eurobarometer surveys routinely rank Romanians among the most EU‑friendly peoples in Central Europe. Yet Simion’s campaign thrived on an incendiary cocktail of ultra‑sovereigntist rhetoric, anti‑Brussels grievance and barely veiled admiration for Vladimir Putin’s defiance of the West.
Three deeper dynamics help explain the paradox. First, after three and a half decades of alternation between the Social‑Democrats (PSD) and various liberal avatars (PNL, USR, splinters) many voters no longer distinguish between parties. Corruption scandals, recycled personalities and the grand PSD‑PNL coalition forged in 2023 created the impression of a self‑serving cartel. The constitutional court’s decision last December to annul the first‑round result on grounds of ‘foreign interference’ fed a growing conviction that the establishment would bend rules to keep outsiders at bay. Simion framed his bid as a popular uprising against a perfidious elite: the slogan “Nu ne furați viitorul!” – Don’t steal our future – became omnipresent on social media.
Second, AUR perfected digital grievance entrepreneurship. TikTok, once a back‑channel for teenage dance clips, is now Romania’s loudest political megaphone. Party strategists saturated the platform with short videos featuring Simion praying before Orthodox icons, live‑streaming confrontations with police or proclaiming solidarity with striking miners. Independent researchers counted more than eighty‑five thousand clips tagged with pro‑Simion hashtags during the forty‑eight hours surrounding election day; rivals combined produced fewer than fifteen thousand. Algorithms rewarded the emotional intensity of the content: folk tunes, tricolour flags, denunciations of “globalist traitors”. Mainstream television, still influential among older voters, struggled to counter the viral wave.
Third, the diaspora turned decisively towards radical protest. By Sunday night more than 970,000 Romanians had voted abroad, a historic turnout that is 150,000 more than the number registered in November 2024. Exit‑poll data show that nearly six in ten overseas ballots went to Simion. Interviews conducted by HotNews correspondents in Malaga and Vienna reveal a potent blend of economic resentment (“our children are born in debt”) and civilisational pride (“we have seen how Europeans live and want the same standards at home”). AUR has spent years cultivating diaspora networks through cultural associations, church events and targeted Telegram channels; the payoff became visible on Sunday night.
The Candidate of TikTok Nationalism
George Simion’s personal trajectory encapsulates the new style of Romanian populism. Raised in a modest family in Focșani, he earned notoriety as an activist for reunification with Moldova, organising disruptive protests across the Prut River. In parliament he blended pugnacious street theatre – storming elections offices, recording live from plenary rows – with performative piety. His embrace of Călin Georgescu, suspended last year after the Kremlin‑linked influencer was barred from running, allowed Simion to inherit a ready‑made mythos of spiritual restoration and ecological nationalism. The imagery is carefully choreographed: embroidered shirts, medieval fortresses, sometimes a horse. Yet the movement’s organisational backbone is ruthlessly modern: micro‑targeted Facebook groups, data‑harvesting websites and a merchandise line that ships worldwide.
The campaign’s ideological palette mixes Orthodox mysticism, conspiracy theories about Western decadence, promises of debt relief for young families, denunciations of “foreign‑owned banks” and calls for “strategic neutrality” in the Ukraine war. Of over thirty‑three distinct policy pledges, none was accompanied by costing. It hardly mattered. The emotional appeal lay in a single refrain: Romania, the stolen homeland, must be reclaimed.
Nicușor Dan’s Narrow Road
Facing Simion on May 18 is the softly spoken mathematician‑turned‑mayor of Bucharest. Dan campaigns on technocratic competence: repairing tramlines, digitising permits, protecting urban green spaces. He won the capital in 2020 and in 2024 by uniting fragmented centre‑right clans; replicating that feat nationally is exponentially harder. For more than a decade Dan has embodied an anti‑corruption, pro‑EU civic spirit, yet he lacks a nationwide party machine. His hope rests on a rapid convergence of three electorates: Antonescu’s ageing provincial voters, Ponta’s disgruntled left‑leaners and the scattered liberal middle class who backed Lasconi. If every one of those ballots slid effortlessly into Dan’s column, he could reach fifty‑seven per cent – mathematically sufficient. Romanian politics, however, rarely obeys Euclidean logic.
One immediate hurdle is apathy. First‑round participation was under fifty‑five per cent; Simion’s devotees are unlikely to stay home, whereas centrist voters often do. Another obstacle lies abroad: Dan lost the diaspora by thirty‑three points. His team must now race through parishes and community halls in Madrid, Milan or Munich, persuading émigrés that a Simion presidency could jeopardise the visa‑free mobility they cherish. The PSD‑PNL apparatus has promised to mobilise its mayors for Dan, but the alliance’s grass‑roots enthusiasm is tepid; local barons fear being punished next year if they openly campaign for a candidate who spent years lambasting their patronage networks.
Europe Holds Its Breath
The shock in Bucharest reverberated instantly in EU capitals. AUR’s programme envisages referendums on ‘repatriating sovereignty’ from Brussels, re‑negotiating green‑transition targets and suspending arms deliveries to Ukraine. While the Romanian president cannot unilaterally quit NATO or the EU, he chairs the Supreme Defence Council, appoints the anti‑corruption prosecutor and wields veto authority over legislation. A Simion presidency would thus place an unpredictable gatekeeper at the eastern flank of both unions at a moment when Russian hybrid pressure is intensifying.
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Claudia Bădulescu is a post-doctoral researcher at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), linked to the Institute of European Studies (IEE). Her research explores the administrative reforms and the democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. She also works on the european integration process. […]
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avril 29, 2025By Wojciech Albert Łobodziński, journalist.
This article was first published in Cross-border Talks on the 24th of April 2024. Find the original article here : Polish Presidential Elections: How Mainstreaming of the (Far) Right Continues – Cross-border Talks.
Less than a month before the first round of presidential elections in Poland, Rafał Trzaskowski, a candidate close to the ruling liberal-social-democrat coalition, leads the race with 28% support. He is followed by Karol Nawrocki, the candidate backed by sovereignists of Law and Justice, who holds 22%. Sławomir Mentzen of the far-right Confederation party comes third, polling at 15%. Szymon Hołownia of the centre-right Poland 2050 party trails behind them with 7% support. Adrian Zandberg of the social democratic Together party follows with 6%, while his former party colleague Magdalena Biejat, now representing the centre-left New Left, garners just 4%.
Yet one must ask: does a simple division of electoral percentages truly capture the underlying political reality in Poland?
Don’t be dismayed by the high support for the ‘progressive’ Rafał Trzaskowski or the supposedly liberal Szymon Hołownia – while the more hardcore right may seem weaker in the polls, their ideology is leaving a powerful mark on the campaign and on the programmes of nearly everyone in the race, the left-leaning candidates being the only exception.
The 2025 Polish presidential election is marked an unmistakable turn toward nationalism
A development that transcends party boundaries and permeates nearly every corner of the political discourse. This nationalist shift, however, does not follow a single trajectory. Instead, it has manifested itself in two mutually reinforcing forms: cultural exclusion and economic individualism.
On the one hand, there is an increasingly explicit rhetoric of xenophobia and suspicion, especially toward migrants. What was once a moment of national pride — Poland’s open-armed response to Ukrainian refugees in 2022 — has given way to open hostility. The narrative has shifted: Ukrainians are no longer “guests in need” but alleged opportunists, accused of exploiting Polish hospitality. Political actors who previously emphasized humanitarian principles are now scrambling to appeal to a fearful and fatigued electorate. This applies to Rafał Trzaskowski too. Yes: Donald Tusk and his party, once vocal critics of the Law and Justice government’s repressive border policies, now boast about deportation numbers and pledge to shield Polish society from an undefined, foreign threat.
In recent days, this narrative has taken on a new form, with the liberal government stating that it is time to repolonise the Polish economy — until now, such concepts were the domain of the far right.
📍Operacja: #repolonizacja. O co chodziło @donaldtusk? W koalicji konsternacja – https://t.co/wDK9X5VtNDPiszemy z @grzegorzosiecki. https://t.co/nQSUbzQoVU— Tomasz Żółciak (@tzolciak) April 24, 2025Translation: Operation: #repolonization. What was @donaldtusk all about? In the coalition consternation.
This shift is not confined to the political right. It has become mainstream.
Neoliberalism in Nationalist Clothing
While the cultural form of this nationalism is rooted in exclusion, its economic variant takes the shape of a renewed — and radicalized — neoliberalism. Most of the candidates, with the two exceptions on the left, have embraced what can only be described as a deregulated vision of the state. Calls for low taxes have been repeated like mantras, up to proposals to constitutionally ban certain forms of taxation altogether. What we are witnessing is neoliberalism unrestrained — stripped even of the modest social interests that once characterized Polish economic discourse.
The effect of that was seen in April, when the majority of the Tusk’s government, except the New Left, voted for lowering health insurance contributions for entrepreneurs. The simple majority was possible thanks to the abstention of the far-right Confederation. This means that full-time employees, who earn less on average, will pay higher contributions than entrepreneurs. The cost of this? PLN 4.6 billion, or just over EUR 1 billion. All this at a time when the public health system is struggling with a budget deficit of around PLN 20 billion, or around EUR 5 billion. A deficit that is growing month by month. Now, the bill is awaiting the president’s signature and Senate’s approval.
In this context, both the Law and Justice’s model of “social-faced nationalism” and the Civic Coalition’s intermittent gestures toward housing as a public good have disappeared from the debate. The policy space has narrowed to a point where redistributive or solidaristic proposals are viewed as electoral liabilities.
The Radicalisation of the Center
Some authors attribute it to an amoral, individualistic turn — one resembling the thesis of Edward C. Banfield from his famous book The Moral Basis of a Backward Society — stating that such turns are common in the situations of prolonged crisis and general uncertainty. While others add vigilantly that such a turn would be impossible if the Polish state fulfilled its promises in terms of healthcare, education and general social policy.
At the same time others point out that this nationalist and individualist shift is not simply a reaction to external events. It is the result of structural failures within the political system — particularly on the part of the democratic opposition. For years, the Polish right has not only dominated the political narrative but also systematically dismantled the legitimacy of alternative platforms. The opposition, instead of developing its own communicative tools, ceded space — both rhetorical and institutional. The cost of that passivity is now evident.
The complete surrender of the Polish post-communist left, described in a truly masterful way by Maria Snegovaya in her book When the Left Moves Right, ended up with the left no longer existing today in a meaningful way, and left-wing economic ideas enjoying the support of only a few percent of the population – apart from pro-social measures in the form of benefits, which enjoy strong support, but not for ‘outsiders’.
At the same time, the protest movements in Poland were crushed or ostensibly ignored, and the trade unions suffer from an extremely restrictive laws limiting the actions they could take and making organisation of protests really challenging. As my colleague, Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat, commented: “A generation of voters, raised in a climate of political resignation and atomized interest, has internalized the lesson that collective action is futile. They see no incentive to engage with systems that ignore them. Today, this generation shapes the political landscape — not through protests or reformist energy, but through a hardened belief in self-preservation.”
From Solidarity to Scapegoating
Among the most alarming developments of the campaign is the degree to which anti-immigrant narratives have targeted Ukrainian refugees. The language once reserved for fringe voices has entered the mainstream. For a brief but telling period, nearly every major political force, except for the Left and Poland 2050, adopted positions indistinguishable from those of the far-right Confederation party — a group known for its ultranationalist and pro-Russian stance.
One of the more prominent proposals, supported implicitly or explicitly by multiple candidates, is to restrict the 800+ child benefit program by excluding unemployed Ukrainians. This proposal is not only discriminatory but factually unfounded. The benefit is already conditional on school attendance and having a legal residency title. The money is never transferred abroad, nor is it exploited by foreign beneficiaries en masse.
Contrary to the far right propaganda, approximately 80% of Ukrainian refugees in Poland are employed. Others are either seeking employment or work informally due to administrative barriers (and dishonesty of the employers). These are the highest rates of labour market integration among refugee populations in the European Union. Nonetheless, the political utility of the scapegoat has proven irresistible.
Political Calculus
This narrative shift is not driven solely by ideology. It reflects a calculated political response to evolving public sentiment. Three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, fatigue has set in. The emotional solidarity that defined early 2022 has eroded. A recent poll by the Mieroszewski Centre illustrates the change: only 25% of respondents express a positive view of Ukrainians, while 30% hold a negative one. The largest group — 41% — remain neutral. But the trajectory is clear. Sentiment is cooling, and political actors are adjusting accordingly.
The implications of this shift are profound. Anti-Ukrainian rhetoric not only damages bilateral relations and undermines regional stability but also obstructs the long-term integration of refugees — a policy failure that will have social, economic, and demographic consequences for years to come.
Institutional Illusions
In contrast to the toxicity of the migration debate, Poland’s economic outlook has been surprisingly positive. In 2024, real wages increased by 9.5% — the fastest pace since the early years of the post-communist transformation. This growth, driven by statutory increases to the minimum wage and significant rises in the public sector, served as a form of delayed compensation for the inflation shock of 2023, which had briefly exceeded 18%.
Poland’s GDP growth — approximately 3% — placed it near the top of EU rankings for 2024, and forecasts for 2025 remain similarly optimistic. Yet these facts have not led to a more constructive or nuanced economic debate. On the contrary, candidates from across the political spectrum have treated the economy as a stage for posturing rather than policymaking.
What makes this even more paradoxical is that the Polish president has only limited influence over economic policy. While the office has the power of legislative initiative and veto, fiscal decisions are made by parliament and executed by the government. Still, presidential candidates continue to campaign on economic visions that far exceed their institutional remit.
In part, this is due to public misunderstanding. Many voters simply do not grasp the limits of presidential authority. But there is a deeper reason: Polish presidential elections are not just contests of personality. They have turned into referenda on the kind of state people want to live in — including its economic character.
A Legal System Under Stress
Beyond political rhetoric and campaign slogans, a more serious threat looms: the potential invalidation of the election results. In a context where electoral victories are decided by narrow margins, even minor irregularities carry significant weight. In recent years, both presidential and parliamentary elections in Poland have hinged on small vote differentials. This fragility makes the system vulnerable to legal and procedural contestation.
More concerning is the broader legitimacy crisis that underpins this risk. For over a decade, Poland has been locked in a political and constitutional standoff. Competing parties no longer recognize each other’s legitimacy. Institutions are not seen as neutral arbiters but as instruments of partisan warfare. The consequences have been corrosive: the Constitutional Tribunal has lost its credibility, and the ordinary judiciary has been politicized.
Against this backdrop, the electoral process itself is now at risk. One plausible scenario is already being floated: should Rafał Trzaskowski narrowly defeat his PiS-backed opponent, supporters of the losing side may file formal challenges with the Supreme Court. Their argument? That the ruling coalition, by withholding public subsidies from the opposition, distorted the electoral playing field.
These funds — amounting to tens of millions of złotys — would have bolstered PiS’s campaign infrastructure. If the court rules the election invalid, and the ruling coalition refuses to accept that verdict, the crisis could deepen. At that point, Poland would face not just a contested election, but a constitutional rupture.
Polarization as Policy
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this campaign is the sheer absence of political will to prevent such a crisis. Initiatives aimed at depolarization or electoral safeguards have been neglected. No party is actively seeking compromise. Dialogue has been replaced by escalation. Polarization has ceased to be a by-product of partisanship and has become the objective itself.
This nihilism is not limited to institutional politics. It is reflected in Poland’s broader political culture. The erosion of Polish-Ukrainian relations is not simply a diplomatic failure. It is a symptom of a society increasingly unwilling to sustain long-term commitments or pursue inclusive strategies. The shift from solidarity to suspicion has not only harmed refugees — it has weakened Poland’s international standing and soft power.
Much will depend on whether political narratives continue to focus narrowly on denying specific benefits — such as child support — to unemployed Ukrainians, or whether they evolve into broader attempts to restrict access to the welfare state altogether. Despite its limitations, the Polish welfare system still offers certain universal provisions, including access to public healthcare. In this context, Karol Nawrocki has already pledged to give Polish citizens priority in medical queues — a proposal that signals a more systemic exclusionary approach.
The current situation is already cause for concern. What happens if, following the end of the war in Ukraine, millions more people seek to relocate to Poland? A poll conducted by the Razumkov Centre and the Democratic Initiative Foundation in January this year shows that 21% of Ukrainians plan to leave after the war ends, while an increasing number of those already in the country express the desire to remain permanently. In 2022, every second Ukrainian wanted to return to their country, and in 2025, every sixth Ukrainian wanted to return. Given the likely postwar dynamics — including the risk of capital-driven “colonisation” of Ukraine and the persistence of a frozen conflict — it is reasonable to expect that far more Ukrainians will arrive than current estimates suggest.
In the end Poland was once viewed as a regional leader in humanitarian response. Today, it risks becoming a cautionary tale.
A Campaign Without a Center
The 2025 presidential election has revealed not just a crisis of governance, but a crisis of representation. This is the most ideologically extreme campaign since 1989. The far-right has shaped the discourse to such an extent that even moderate liberals now appear defensive, hesitant, or silent on basic questions of human rights and democratic norms.
As said our editorial colleague, Małgorzata Kulbaczewska-Figat: “Voters on the left — as well as centrist liberals who value open borders, civil liberties, and inclusive governance — are now effectively disenfranchised. Their preferences are not reflected in the public debate. Their candidates are marginalized. Their language — the language of rights, solidarity, and democracy — has become foreign to the mainstream.”
The second round of the election will likely intensify this trend. As candidates vie for the most radical votes, moderation will be treated as weakness, not virtue. The electorate is being mobilized not toward deliberation or reform, but toward entrenchment and antagonism.
The costs of this approach will not be felt on election day. They will be felt long after — in the institutions that are further hollowed out, in the communities that grow more divided, and in the opportunities that are lost to fear, fatigue, and political short-sightedness.
What about the left?
The Polish left is struggling for political survival. Following its split at the end of last year, the coalition fractured into two separate entities: Together and the New Left. Only the latter remains part of the governing coalition. While the government has recently promoted measures such as subsidies for housing loans and supported a reduction in health insurance contributions — after previously introducing a range of tax breaks for entrepreneurs — there has been no movement on key progressive issues. Liberalisation of abortion laws or the legal recognition of same-sex unions remain absent from the legislative agenda. Broader social policy goals, such as strengthening the public healthcare system or expanding state-led housing initiatives, have seen only limited progress or have definitely been pushed aside.
Simultaneously, the New Left — composed largely of post-Socialist personnel and institutions — has allowed its long-time leader Włodzimierz Czarzasty, a figure whose political career dates back to the Socialist times, to appoint his proteges into senior positions within the government. The consequences have been politically damaging. The (now former) Minister of Science, drawn from Czarzasty’s camp, has been accused of using his office to promote allies and undermine public institutions — including IDEAS NCBiR, a research centre critical of the government’s approach to science and innovation policy. As the liberal outlet Oko.press reported: “the minister came to symbolize the worst aspects of political life: nepotism, cronyism, and a disregard for ethical boundaries.”
Another minister to be dismissed was Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna, accused in the media of assaulting a woman, being drunk while on duty, harassing party staff and other pathological behaviour. The case has not yet been clarified, but it is telling that the accusations were led by his own party structures in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship.
Social democracy entering the game?
The Together party, by contrast, continues to fight for political relevance — seeking to establish its own electorate, identity, and voice within the Polish political system. Since its founding in 2015, when it secured 3% of the vote and thus qualified for public subsidies, the party has faced persistent difficulties gaining visibility in mainstream media. Liberal elites largely blamed the Together party for the electoral collapse of the post-communist left that year. Under the D’Hondt method used to allocate parliamentary seats, the fragmentation of the left contributed directly to Law and Justice securing a legislative majority.
In 2019, the young party aligned themselves with post-communist forces for the parliamentary elections, repeating this strategy again in 2023. Yet despite running on a joint ticket, the Together party was ultimately sidelined during coalition negotiations. None of the party’s demands were included in the coalition agenda, and their presence in the Sejm and Senate — a modest total of ten seats — proved irrelevant to the formation of the new government. The machinations of Tusk and Czarzasty led to the party splitting in two, and the ringleader of this split, Magdalena Biejat, ultimately became the presidential candidate for the New Left.
If the result of Together party candidate Adrian Zandberg is higher than Biejat’s, as polls suggest, it could mean a new beginning for the left in Poland. A formation free from cronyism and a history of corruption, which is synonymous with a lack of trust for most working-class voters, as shown by Maria Snegovaya. Any result above 5% will be the starting point for building a party that will be able to exceed this level in parliamentary elections, thereby gaining independent representation in the Sejm.
Major realignment ahead
The 2025 Polish presidential election is not merely a contest between candidates. This phenomenon can be interpreted as a reflection of a more profound structural realignment, one which involves a concurrent strain on political language, institutional integrity, and civic trust. The concept of nationalism, once considered marginal, has evolved into a language of consensus. Neoliberal dogma has re-emerged with renewed intensity, cloaked in populist rhetoric. The center – both in its institutional and ideological sense – has effectively collapsed under the pressure of strategic short-termism and systemic neglect.
The resultant landscape is one of fragmentation. The right commands the narrative, the liberals capitulate to its terms, and the left fights for its very survival. It is fractured, marginalised, yet not without potential. Should the Together party succeed in establishing itself as a credible force, independent of the legacy of cronyism and elite accommodation, it could present the beginnings of a new political alternative. However, the validity of this assertion is contingent upon the attainment of a definitive outcome in a single presidential contest, a scenario that is unlikely to materialise. The restoration of trust among those who have long since withdrawn from public life will be the most crucial element. In order to achieve this, there will need to be organisation and long-term strategy.
The most perilous outcome of this election may not be very figure of the president (even though many voters can sincerely feel unrepresented by any candidate), but the fate of Polish democracy in the period following the campaign. In a political climate where dialogue is replaces with political escalation and collective ambition with moral fatigue, the costs will be measured not in poll numbers, but in the hollowing out of democratic norms and the quiet withdrawal of citizens from a system they no longer believe in.
Whether the second round will serve to consolidate these trends or offer a respite from them remains to be answered. It is evident that the mainstreaming of the (far) right has already occurred. This shift has not manifested abruptly; rather, it is a gradual process of erosion that has gradually eroded the boundaries that once delineated the democratic consensus.
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Wojciech Albert Łobodziński was a former correspondent from France, Italy and Poland, writing about foreign policy, climate change, labor rights, but also new social phenomena for Cross-border talks, publishing in English. He is now Generation Climate Europe’s new Membership Coordinator. […]
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avril 9, 2025By Michał Kuryłowicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland.
There are five weeks left until the first round of Poland’s presidential elections, but the election campaign is only now beginning in earnest. Few remember already the first – autumn – stage of the battle for the presidential palace, that is, the selection of candidates of the two largest parties: Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska) and Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość). Although Donald Tusk’s party’s indication of Rafal Trzaskowski seemed obvious for a long time (he already ran in the 2020 elections and won almost half of the votes), unexpectedly the Civic Coalition decided to hold party primaries. Their purpose was twofold: first, to show voters that the selection of a candidate is fully democratic. Second: Trzaskowski’s challenger, current Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, had strong cards in hand. He is internationally recognized, and he also fits better into the main axis of the election campaign, which is related to the security theme.
With the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and uncertainty over Donald Trump’s policies, Radoslaw Sikorski could, as a potential president, strengthen the « Polish » voice in Europe and vis-à-vis the United States. However, the party primaries resulted in a victory for Trzaskowski, suggesting that for members of the Civic Coalition, Radoslaw Sikorski is still an outsider (he once served as Defense Minister in the Law and Justice government in 2005-2006). What’s more – the support for Trzaskowski, clearly betting on equality discourse, says a lot about the leftward turn of the largest party in the current parliamentary term. However, even Rafał Trzaskowski, a natural peacetime candidate, has had to adjust to the demands of a campaign taking place in « pre-war » times (according to Donald Tusk’s metaphor) and has begun to pay more attention to state security and preparing Poland for a possible defense war against Russia.
No less difficult a choice faced Law and Justice. Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s party, weakened by its defeat in the 2023 parliamentary elections (it won the most seats in those elections, but failed to form a government and ceded power to the opposition after eight years), decided to field a little-known candidate: the incumbent president of the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej), Karol Nawrocki. Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s calculation was probably to avoid fielding too strong a candidate, who is likely to lose to Rafal Trzaskowski anyway. However, betting on Nawrocki – a person hardly recognizable even to Law and Justice voters – turned against the party. Nawrocki has no political experience, in addition, the media point to his former ties to the criminal world in Poland. As a result, his position in the polls oscillates between 23-25%, clearly below the ratings of Law and Justice.
One of Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s calculations was that he hoped Donald Trump’s victory in the US would also strengthen the conservative camp in Poland, reversing the unfavorable poll trend for him. However, this did not happen, and it was mainly the US president himself who contributed to this. The enthusiasm of Law and Justice politicians after Trump’s victory became incomprehensible to at least some Polish voters, as the US president began to suggest after his inauguration the need for a reset in relations with Russia. Security issues thus re-entered the presidential campaign in Poland, but did not strengthen the Law and Justice party, known for its anti-Russian rhetoric. Slawomir Mentzen, the candidate of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), appeared to be the beneficiary of the situation.
Starting in November 2024, Slawomir Mentzen’s popularity is recorded to have increased dramatically. By March 2025, polls were already giving him around 20% support, causing the media to consider his entry into the second round of the presidential election (in which he would face Rafal Trzaskowski). His popularity is explained by at least several factors. The most significant of these is the apparent weariness among a significant portion of voters with the two-decade-long dominance of two political parties: Civic Platform and Law and Justice. The dispute between them, often reduced to a personal conflict between the leaders of the two parties, Donald Tusk and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, increasingly reflects the political views expressed by Poles.
Another reason for Mentzen’s « phenomenon » is the progressive « Trumpization » of Polish politics: a significant shift of the axis of political discussion and sentiment to the right, an emphasis in public debate on the importance of national security, and an increasingly cooler attitude toward the conflict in Ukraine. The colonialist attitude of Donald Trump and members of his administration toward Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukraine, although it crippled the previous international narrative of Law and Justice, at the same time strengthened the Confederation distancing itself from Ukraine and Slawomir Mentzen personally. The latter has begun to transfer the American argumentation against Kyiv to Poland: in his view, Ukraine should show more gratitude to Poland for the assistance it has provided since the beginning of the conflict, and it should engage in peace talks with Russia.
Mentzen’s strength also turns out to be the far-reaching mediatization of the ongoing election campaign. Thanks to it, Mentzen, who makes abundant use of social network promotion, is gaining popularity for his views, especially among the youngest part of Polish society. It is worth noting that it is for this social group that the previous dispute between Tusk and Kaczynski seems most anachronistic. From the point of view of young Poles, Slawomir Mentzen seems to go beyond the familiar set of slogans of the two biggest protagonists of the Polish political scene with his radical slogans.
What was the Confederation candidate’s strength at the beginning of the presidential race may hurt him at the finish of the campaign. The final weeks of the election battle are forcing him to go beyond individual meetings with voters and promotion through social networks. Slawomir Mentzen, but also the other candidates, have to answer journalists’ questions more often, and a TV debate with all registered participants in the race is planned for the week before the election. Slawomir Mentzen already has to explain the slogans he preached in 2019 (the so-called Mentzen Five): « we don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the European Union. » Such a set of views, of course, finds support from a part of the Polish electorate, but it does not exceed 10%. It seems, therefore, that the Confederation’s candidate has now reached the maximum of his poll potential. Going beyond this ceiling already requires a softening of rhetoric, meanwhile the traditionally conservative electorate has already been cultivated by Law and Justice.
The meaning of elections in Poland goes far beyond the possibilities facing a future president. Antoni Dudek, a Polish historian and political scientist, points out, moreover, that the presidential campaign in Poland is largely a „deception of voters”. This is because the highly personalized election campaign forces candidates to make a series of specific proposals and address detailed questions from the media. Meanwhile, the political position of the Polish president gives him representative powers and the ability to block laws created by the government and approved by parliament. The presidential legislative initiative is rarely used in practice, especially under cohabitation conditions, when the head of state has no certainty that his bill will be passed by the Sejm.
The real stakes of the May elections, however, are the comfort of the current government and a possible overhaul of the party system in Poland. In the event of a victory by Rafał Trzaskowski, Donald Tusk’s government will have the opportunity to fulfill a number of its 2023 election announcements, so far blocked by Andrzej Duda (including, in particular, an accounting of Law and Justice’s actions, from its 2015-2023 period in power). Even more important is who will come in second place and enter the second round of elections, announced for June 1. A weak result for Law and Justice candidate Karol Nawrocki, or his potential drop to third place, will not only strengthen his rival on the right (the Confederation). It could also set in motion a process of disintegration of the party itself, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski. A potential split of Law and Justice into two factions, a moderate one and a radical one, would change the current party structure in Poland. The extreme faction would likely take up a partnership with the Confederation. The moderate fraction could be a convenient partner for the Polish People’s Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe), a center-right party, today a member of Donald Tusk’s government coalition. This scenario is therefore unfavorable from the point of view of the current prime minister and at the same time head of the Civic Coalition. It could lead to the situation in which Law and Justice found itself two years ago: although the Civic Coalition wins the elections, it is unable to form a government.
In this situation, it may be in the interest of Donald Tusk’s party to frontally criticize the Confederation’s candidate. Weakening Slawomir Mentzen and the Confederation behind him helps to reassure voters that the most important political dividing line is still between the pro-European Civic Coalition and the eurosceptic (but notorious for its actions) Law and Justice. Such tactics also allow Donald Tusk to convince the Polish People’s Party to continue working together in government. The latter party supported the current Speaker of the parlament, Szymon Holownia, in the presidential election, but did so without conviction. At the beginning of the election campaign, Holownia hoped to score above 10% and come in third in the elections. However, he was overtaken by Slawomir Mentzen. Polish election observers argue that Holownia (who is currently supported by 6-8% of voters) and Mentzen are competing for the same voter, who supports free-market reforms. Stronger support for the Confederation’s candidate would, in this situation, be a « red card » for a government that fails to deliver on its promises. Donald Tusk, aware of these changing electoral preferences, decided to support one of his coalition partner’s flagship proposals: lowering the health taxes for entrepreneurs. In early April, the Parlament passed a law on the issue, but so far this has not translated into election polls. However, these actions confirm that the real stakes of the presidential election are both the balance of power in the government coalition and more broadly: the balance of power in the entire Polish party system.
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Michał Kuryłowicz is a researcher at Jagiellonian University, Poland. He is specialized in the study of Eurasian politics with a focus on relations of Eurasian countries towards Russia. He also studies history of the Eurasian region, from Poland to Central Asia. […]
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avril 7, 2025By Cristian Preda, University of Bucharest.
This article was first published in the review Comunitatea liberală 1848 on the 4th of April 2025. Link to the original article in Romanian: Nori negri la startul campaniei – Comunitatea Liberala.
We have five candidates for Cotroceni who could, in principle, exceed 10%. In alphabetical order, they are Crin Antonescu, Nicușor Dan, Elena Lasconi, Victor Ponta, and George Simion. The pre-campaign period has changed the November landscape.
First of all, out of the three clearly separated electoral blocs from the fall – the governmental, the sovereigntist, and the liberal – only the second has managed to put forward a single candidate. Anamaria Gavrilă, leader of POT, withdrew from the race to allow Simion to also claim the votes given to Călin Georgescu on November 24. Together, the two had gathered 36.8% back then. Simion now appears far from having recovered all those votes.
Secondly, a coalition has formed which we might call Seychelles, if we consider the colors of the parties it comprises: PSD (red) – PNL (yellow-blue) – UDMR (green-red-white). It presents a new candidate – Antonescu – rather than one of the three who had previously represented each party in the current government. The unity of this bloc is contested by Ponta, who is in fact seeking to gather the PSD vote and chip away at the sovereigntist one.
Meanwhile, Lasconi has remained the USR candidate, hoping to repeat her qualification from November 24 and make it to the much-dreamed-of final. Published polls place her at about half the percentage she received back then. Her supporters dispute this. They are now bitterly opposed to the USR founder, who entered the race attempting to gather not just USR votes, but also liberal ones – particularly from those who didn’t support Lasconi’s party in the European or parliamentary elections, instead choosing like-minded parties or independents.
It seems, then, that some tectonic plates are shifting, threatening to rattle the surface the Seychelles coalition portrays as an almost touristy paradise.
Three scenarios seem likely:
One, already presented by N. Dan as the darkest, is the scenario in which G. Simion and V. Ponta recover the sovereigntist and PSD vote (56% in the presidential and 55% in the parliamentary elections), split it almost equally, and face off in the final. Such a development would clearly lead to a PSD-AUR-SOS-POT government.
The second scenario is one in which one of the opponents of the AUR leader and the « dottore » gathers 30% to secure a spot in the final, uniting the liberal and USR electorate ahead of a runoff against either Simion or Ponta – assuming the two divide the PSD-sovereigntist electorate unequally. N. Dan would likely be closest to achieving this, but Antonescu doesn’t seem ready to let go of the fantasy of PSD support, and Lasconi doesn’t seem willing to make the same gesture Ludovic Orban made in November to allow her to reach the final. Thus, this scenario appears less likely than the first.
The third scenario involves C. Georgescu organizing a broad protest movement, asking his voters to spoil their ballots by writing his name on them. The idea is already circulating in sovereigntist circles. It is encouraged by those who interpreted the pro-Russian candidate’s silence as a refusal to support either Ponta or Simion. Such a protest would disrupt the political scene. Russian interference and TikTok would do the rest, and the result could be as unpredictable as last year’s Georgescu-Lasconi final.
Dark clouds loom over the political sky as the campaign begins. The problem is, we don’t know what kind of storm is brewing.
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Cristian Preda is a professor in political science at the University of Bucharest and a former MEP (2009-2019). His research areas are large, from political regimes, to political history, elections and party politics. […]
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mars 21, 2025By Cristian Preda, University of Bucharest.
This article was first published in the review Comunitatea liberală 1848 on the 21st of March 2025. Link to the original publication, in romanian: Înapoi la turu’ întâi – Comunitatea Liberala.
In recent weeks, we have been bombarded with the cries of sovereignists calling for « back to round two! ». At the same time, signatures were being collected for the second round, to be held on May 4, after the 2024 presidential election was canceled.
Uncertainty about the contenders was now even greater than in the fall. On the morning of March 15, the deadline for registration, only two names appeared on the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) website under the heading « candidates ». By the evening, six others had appeared, but appeals had been lodged against some of them, and press releases issued by the BEC said that in the last few hours when registration was still allowed, eight other candidates had submitted applications. On March 16, the CCR rejected 13 appeals, and the BEC did not consider any more. The next day, on Monday, 4 more candidates were given the green light by the BEC and six were rejected. New appeals were filed 72 hours after the deadline for the submission of applications. It was not until the evening of March 19 that we knew the list, because after a sovereignist candidate named Gavrilă, the POT president, had passed the BEC and CCR filters, she too decided to withdraw.
There will be 11 names on the May 4 list. I present them below, taking as a reference the division of the political spectrum into three blocks, which I described in a December article: Ce se clatină mai tare? UE sau partidele-cartel? – Comunitatea Liberala.
The governing coalition now has only one candidate, Crin Antonescu of the National Liberal Party. Indeed, unlike in November 2024, the PSD and UDMR have not entered anyone else, preferring to support the candidacy of the PNL member, who ran for the presidency in 2009, then between 2014 and 2024 withdrew from political life, preferring to stay in the shadow of his wife, Adina Vălean, MEP and Commissioner for Transport in Ursula von der Leyen’s first term. The cartel of the three governing parties has settled under the acronym ARÎ (Alliance Romania Forward).
After the withdrawal – already mentioned – of Anamaria Gavrilă, the isolationist camp has only one candidate – George Simion – backed by two of the three sovereignist parties with parliamentary representation, namely AUR, of which he is president, and POT. Diana Șoșoaca, the leader of the third sovereignist party in the chambers – SOS Romania – has been excluded from the race by the BEC and does not seem willing to support Simion. Also excluded from running was Călin Georgescu. So far, he has not pronounced either on the withdrawal of the leader of POT, the party that has claimed Georgescu’s candidacy, or on a possible transfer of votes from him to G. Simion.
The liberal bloc – in the European sense of the term, through Renew Europe – has sent Elena Lasconi, president of the Union Save Romania (USR), qualified for the November 2024 final, back into the race.
Eight other candidates are vying for citizens’ trust. For the time being at least, it’s best to situate them according to the three electoral blocs that have been formed.
Three of them – Silviu Predoiu (National Action League), Sebastian Popescu (New Romania Party) and Cristian Terheș (Romanian National Conservative Party) – are, as the names of the parties supporting them indicate, in the sovereignist pole. They were also in the November race, getting, in order, 0.12%, 0.15% and 1.03%. I would also put alongside them John-Ion Banu, who also ran for the Cotroceni in 2019, when he garnered 0.3% of the vote.
The other four contenders will seek to erode the support enjoyed not just by one electoral bloc, but at least two of the three. Thus, former prime minister Victor Ponta, until recently a member of the PSD but expelled from the party precisely for not supporting Antonescu, is insisting on the support of his former colleagues. He has defined himself, on the other hand, as a sovereignist and Trumpianist, seeking to identify with the values that Georgescu cultivated. Ponta is a kind of Romanian Fico.
Lavinia Șandru is running on behalf of Dan Voiculescu’s Social-Liberal Humanist Party, which has been a satellite of the PSD for many years. Șandru is, on the other hand, close to Cosmin Gușă, one of the main pro-Kremlin voices in the public space, so we may see her rallying the votes of Romanians who declare themselves nationalist, anti-Ukrainian and anti-vaccination, a theme that has recently resurfaced five years after the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic.
Daniel Funeriu will also cast his rod in the Penelist waters, having been education minister more than a decade ago as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, swallowed up in 2014 into the PNL. But he is also seeking support among sovereignists, using simple explanations that equate this identity with respect for the article describing the Romanian state as sovereign. In recent years, Funeriu has clearly positioned himself in the conservative camp, which denounces wokeism and the so-called sexo-marxism, i.e. protection for sexual minorities.
Finally, the current mayor of the capital will try to get votes from the USR, but also the support of liberal voters, whether affiliated or not to the PNL, as happened in the competition for the Bucharest mayoralty.
Let’s also recall the figures: the governing cartel garnered 42-43% of the votes in last year’s presidential and legislative elections. The sovereignists ranged between 38 percent, which is what their presidential candidates collected on November 24, and 32 percent in the December 1 elections for the two chambers. The usurist camp – affiliated to the European liberal movement – garnered just over 19 percent in both polls.
Two questions are, in fact, decisive: the first is whether support for the three camps will remain within the limits described by the fall’s scores. The other concerns the dispersion within each of them.
I leave it to each of you to make your own predictions.
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Cristian Preda is a professor in political science at the University of Bucharest and a former MEP (2009-2019). His research areas are large, from political regimes, to political history, elections and party politics. […]
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