The streets of Warsaw, typically lively even in political disappointment, fell into an eerie quiet after Poland’s presidential runoff. It wasn’t just the typical hush of resignation, though.
As Warsaw-based Israeli journalist Hagay Hacohen told The Jerusalem Post just days after Karol Nawrocki’s victory, even the subdued bustle of daily life seemed to pause. On trams and buses, conversations stopped. Phones went silent.
The capital, which had thrown its support behind the Civic Coalition’s candidate and the city’s mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, seemed shocked in shared disbelief.
This reaction captured the psychological weight of the result. Nawrocki’s narrow win, securing just over 50.8% of the vote, marked a stunning reversal of the liberal optimism that swept Prime Minister Donald Tusk into power barely 18 months earlier.
For many urban, pro-European voters, the election result was an electoral setback, signifying the rupture between Poland’s traditional, rural areas and the progressive momentum that had built up in cities such as Warsaw.
Hacohen stressed that the outcome reflected not only the organizational strength of Poland’s Right but also widespread disappointment with the Tusk-led government. The Civic Coalition had rallied public support in 2023 on promises of restoring judicial independence, advancing women’s rights, particularly on abortion, and re-establishing ties with the European Union. Yet many of those promises have remained unfulfilled.
“These elections are a slap in the face to the ruling coalition – Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform and its allies – the same coalition that a year and a half ago inspired the Polish voters to go out there and vote out the Law and Justice party (PiS), the conservative, traditionalist, Catholic-oriented, Eurosceptic party.
“These people are disappointed with this government, and they decided to ‘punish’ it by either not voting or by not voting in great numbers as before. This is because the last year and a half has been disappointing to them. The Tusk government did not achieve many of the things they promised they would, with abortion rights being the first thing, and as a result, when there’s a vacuum, someone else steps in.”
Voter turnout has gone down as the people have become disenchanted with the government
Voter turnout dropped in areas where the Civic Platform had previously mobilized strong support. What was once a wave of enthusiasm became a tide of disenchantment. That vacuum allowed Nawrocki, backed by PiS and a right-wing coalition, to present himself as a viable alternative, not necessarily because he persuaded a majority of Poles with a detailed policy vision but because he embodied a rejection of the political class of which many had grown weary.
“This is the person that 50.89% of the Polish population voted for, and they said, ‘Yes, we prefer this man to be the president of Poland, someone who promised to block legislation, and we prefer this person over Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski,” Hacohen stated.
Nawrocki’s persona, part conservative intellectual, part anti-elite outsider, appealed to a segment of the electorate eager to feel represented, even if imperfectly. He is best known for heading the Institute of National Remembrance, and less known for any legislative or diplomatic experience. A former amateur boxer, he is viewed by many critics as an ideologue of Polish victimhood. Yet, it was this outsider status that helped him win over the margins needed for victory.
“It’s similar to the US in 2016,” Hacohen observed. “You had Hillary Clinton, the political establishment, and Trump, a businessman and reality TV star. There is a growing number of people who say the status quo isn’t working.”Nawrocki’s victory is likely to deepen the political deadlock in Warsaw.
Much like his predecessor Andrzej Duda, he is expected to wield the presidential veto to frustrate the legislative agenda of Tusk’s centrist government. Already, key efforts to reverse PiS-era judicial reforms have been delayed or diluted due to executive opposition. With Nawrocki in the presidency, the balance of power will tilt further toward gridlock.
The judicial reforms at the heart of this power struggle have long strained Poland’s relations with the European Union. The EU’s top court ruled that Poland’s system for appointing judges undermined judicial independence. Efforts to resolve the issue have been cautious and slow, as Tusk has sought to navigate the competing demands of domestic politics and European law.
Nawrocki has given little indication that he will break from the legacy of PiS on this issue. In fact, he campaigned explicitly as a check on what he framed as overreach by the liberal government. His presidency will therefore represent not merely a return to nationalist rhetoric but a potential institutional barrier to democratic reform.
The Israeli concern surrounding Nawrocki’s presidency concentrates on a topic much more personal to the country. His previous role at the Institute of National Remembrance placed him at the center of Poland’s fraught debate over history and responsibility, particularly regarding the Holocaust.
In 2018, under outgoing President Andrzej Duda, Poland passed legislation criminalizing accusations of Polish complicity in Nazi crimes. The move sparked international outrage, particularly from Israel and Jewish organizations, who feared that such a law would stifle academic inquiry and distort historical truth.
Nawrocki defended the institution’s role in promoting a national narrative of Polish suffering, a narrative that, while not denying the Holocaust, emphasizes the country’s victimhood over its complicity.
Hacohen pointed out that Nawrocki is not viewed by most observers as openly antisemitic. His approach to Holocaust memory is more subtle, focusing on shifting the view from Jewish suffering to Polish endurance.“It’s not an institution that says there was no Holocaust,” Hacohen said. “It says: Yes, the Jews had a Holocaust, it was awful, but we want to talk about the Polish pain too.”
This reframing is troubling to many Jewish observers, not for what it says but for what it omits. The risk is not that Holocaust denial will flourish – it won’t – but that the broader narrative becomes distorted and that Polish victimhood is used to deflect deeper moral reckoning.
Despite his nationalist leanings, Nawrocki is unlikely to move Poland outside the orbit of NATO or the EU. The war in Ukraine remains an existential issue for Warsaw, and relations with Washington are still central to its foreign policy. Nawrocki has stated that he supports strong transatlantic relations, and there’s little evidence to suggest he’ll provoke major shifts in defense or diplomatic posture.
The day after the vote, Warsaw seemed suspended in time. The city had embraced Trzaskowski not just as a local politician but as a symbol of Poland’s future: Modern, European, outward-looking. His defeat has sent that vision packing, in lieu of a return to traditionalism and historical introspection.
“My Polish friends are devastated,” Hacohen told the Post regarding the result. “My fiancée said that on public transport, the day after the elections, there was silence. Usually, people talk, people speak on their phones, people make jokes, and it was absolute silence.”