The mayor of Warsaw, a decommunizer and an arsonist of the EU flag. Who is fighting for the presidency of Poland

Presidential elections will be held in Poland on May 18. The current head of state, Andrzej Duda, will not take part in them due to time constraints. The mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski, and the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, Karol Nawrocki, are primarily seeking his post. Who else participates in the elections and which ideas they adhere to can be found in the Izvestia article.

What is the position of the President of Poland

• Poland is a mixed republic in terms of its political structure, in which the president has fairly broad powers and opportunities to influence politics. He has the right to veto laws passed by Parliament, which requires at least three-fifths of the votes of at least half of the voting deputies. The Polish president may also ask the Constitutional Court to review an unsigned law, which usually makes it possible to avoid its adoption.

• The President of Poland also has the right to call referendums and, in certain cases, shorten the term of office of Parliament. The Head of State, instead of Parliament, ratifies and denounces international treaties, unless they relate to the transfer of the competence of government agencies to international organizations. All these powers allow the president to influence the policy of the government and the Prime Minister, making them equivalent figures in the Polish system of government.

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• The President of Poland is elected for a five-year term, which can be held no more than twice. The current head of state is Andrzej Duda, whose second term is coming to an end. In the elections, he was supported by the right-wing populist Law and Justice Party (PiS), which had a majority in the Sejm from 2015 to 2023, but now leads the opposition to the moderate "Civic Coalition" led by Donald Tusk.

Who are the main candidates for the presidency

• The leader of the opinion polls is Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski. He is supported by a little more than 30% of voters. Trzaskowski is moving forward from the Civic Platform, which is part of the Civic Coalition. He is an experienced politician who has already reached the second round of the presidential election in 2020, when he lost only 2% to Duda. Trzaskowski was also elected to the Sejm and the European Parliament, at various times he served as Minister of Digital Development and Deputy Foreign Minister.

• Although Trzaskowski leads opinion polls, his support is gradually declining for a number of reasons. First, the Tusk government has failed to achieve significant results over the past two years due to the inability to override Duda's veto, which is why the liberals are accused of failing to fulfill their election promises. Secondly, in Poland as a whole, there has been a lurch to the right under the influence of an external agenda, while Trzaskowski himself, as mayor of Warsaw, shows himself more like a leftist politician. Recently, he began to intercept some right-wing theses and stated that Ukrainians living in Poland should be deprived of parental benefits if they do not have a job and do not pay taxes.

• Trzaskowski's main rival is the PiS nominee Karol Navrotsky, who has about 25% support. He is a newcomer to politics, although this is an advantage rather than a disadvantage for Poland, as shown by the example of Duda in 2015 — he was also little known before the elections and won by contrasting himself with "old politicians."

• Navrotsky holds the post of President of the Institute of National Remembrance, the body responsible for the policy of denazification and decommunization. He was the director of the World War II Museum until 2021. Navrotsky speaks from the right-wing positions of PiS, but at the same time he is formally an independent candidate and tries not to associate himself with the party that lost the last election, which also does not arouse deep sympathy among voters now.

Who else is fighting for the presidency

• Trzaskowski and Navrotsky are the main candidates for the second round. At the same time, several other fairly significant politicians will take part in the elections, which will determine what the balance of power will be after the first round. One of them may be Slawomir Menzen, who is running from the far-right Confederation bloc. In opinion polls, he is confidently in third place with about 13% of support.

Menzen is being compared to Romanian politician Calin Georgescu, which implies not only the similarity of their views, but also the ability to achieve an unexpectedly high result in the first round. Menzen bases his program on anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, euroscepticism, libertarian views on the economy and a tough stance towards migrants. His voters in the second round will be much more likely to support Navrotsky than the liberal Trzaskowski.

• Of the second-tier candidates, Marshal of the Sejm Szymon Holownia is the closest to the mayor of Warsaw, who so far has 8% support. He is nominated by the centrist Poland 2050 party, which is part of the ruling coalition. Five years ago, Holovnya took third place in the first round and has already called for voting for Trzaskowski.

• Grzegorz Braun, a member of the European Parliament, stands out among the candidates who advocate normalization of relations with Russia. He calls for the restoration of contacts with Moscow and a pragmatic approach in foreign policy. During the election campaign, Brown was remembered for a number of extravagant acts — he burned and trampled the flag of the European Union, attacked a gynecologist performing abortions, and in 2023 extinguished candles in the Hanukkah menorah. In opinion polls, Brown is given up to 5% support.