By 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.