Polish presidential election: Trzaskowski wins, but far-right votes grow

On Monday, May 19, the National Election Commission of Poland announced the final results of the first round of the presidential election, as reported by Polsat News.

Official results after counting votes from 100% of polling stations showed that Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, a candidate from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party, won 31.36%, and the director of the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who is supported by the right-wing opposition PiS party, won 29.54%.

Rafał Trzaskowski has been considered a favorite since the beginning of the election campaign, but his result is lower than expected.

Trzaskowski and Nawrocki will face off in the second round of the presidential election on June 1. Nawrocki is formally considered an independent candidate, but he is actively supported by the largest opposition party, Law and Justice.

The third place went to the candidate of the far-right Confederation party, Slawomir Mentzen, known for his anti-Ukrainian statements. He received 15.4%, which is higher than expected. It is believed that these votes could be decisive in the second round.

Another controversial far-right candidate, Grzegorz Braun, finished fourth with 1,242,892 votes (6.34%), and the fifth place went to Polish Sejm Speaker Szymon Holownia with 978,893 votes (4.99%).

These results suggest that the outcome of the second round of the Polish presidential election may be completely unpredictable. The votes from the Poles who supported far-right politicians in the first round could have an important bearing on the outcome.

The election turnout was 67.31%, which was higher than in the first round of the 2020 elections, when it was 64.51%.