Seventeen candidates will face off to become president of Poland, the electoral commission said on Friday, in a key ballot-box test pitting the ruling pro-European government against two nationalist challengers.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government will hope to end the awkward cohabitation it has been forced into with conservative President Andrzej Duda, who has repeatedly vetoed key reforms.
Friday was the deadline for presidential hopefuls to present themselves ahead of the first round on May 18, though the final number of candidates could eventually change pending the commission’s checks.
However the second round run-off scheduled for June 1 will likely prove necessary to determine Duda’s successor at the helm of the eastern European Union and NATO member.
Since Tusk won power in December 2023 Duda, an ally of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party ousted by the prime minister’s Civic Coalition, has worked to thwart the government’s attempts to implement its electoral promises.
Duda, who will leave office in August after the maximum two five-year terms allowed, has notably prolonged the judicial chaos inherited from the PiS.
With around 33 to 35% of the vote in the latest polls, Warsaw mayor and Civic Coalition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski is the current frontrunner.
The 53-year-old is trailed by two Eurosceptic candidates who are neck-and-neck in their bid to make the run-off.
The PiS has thrown its weight behind Karol Nawrocki, the 42-year-old head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) for investigating Nazi and communist-era crimes.
He is currently polling at around 19 to 23% of the vote, ahead of the far-right Confederation party’s choice Slawomir Mentzen, 38, on 17 to 19%.
Both politicians are admirers of US President Donald Trump.
Likewise while neither men question Poland’s support for neighboring Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, both have nonetheless banged the drum to denounce the country’s hosting of nearly a million Ukrainian refugees.
Other candidates include parliamentary speaker Szymon Holownia, who is standing for the centre-right Poland 2050 party, which is part of the government coalition. He is polling at around eight percent.
In Poland, a country of 38 million people, the powers of the president are limited.
Yet the head of state coordinates defence and foreign policy and formally serves at the head of the armed forces.
The president likewise has the right to propose and veto legislation.