Karol Nawrocki, the conservative candidate backed by the Law and Justice Party (PiS), narrowly defeated Rafał Trzaskowski and will be sworn in as president in August. After losing control of parliament just two years ago, PiS has retained the presidency, clawing its way back into the state’s institutions and positioning itself for a potential return to power in 2027.
For Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the outcome is a blow from which he may not recover. His government, a fragile coalition strung together after the 2023 parliamentary vote, now faces an emboldened opposition, a veto-wielding president, and deepening internal disarray.
Tusk has called for a vote of confidence on June 11, a gambit aimed at steadying his own ranks and forcing wavering coalition allies, particularly the Polish People’s Party (PSL), to reaffirm its commitment. Whether it will work is uncertain, as the cracks in his government are visible and growing.
PSL, a centrist agrarian party with deep rural roots, is reported to be in talks with PiS and is the ultimate swing player. If he is to hold on to power, Tusk must reassure both his pro-European base and his coalition partners, many of whom are already uneasy with the government’s direction and tone.
But the problem isn’t only politics; it’s structure. The coalition has no natural leader beyond Tusk, no unified message beyond rhetoric, and little to show for its first 18 months in power. Accusations of nepotism and mismanagement — once the hallmarks of PiS — have returned, this time aimed at the new ruling camp.
In this vacuum, the far right smells blood. Confederation, whose presidential candidate Sławomir Mentzen surged in the first round, is pushing the message that the government has lost legitimacy. Its growing base, particularly among younger voters disenchanted with both liberal centrism and nationalist conservatism, sees opportunity in the current chaos.
The party’s appeal lies not only in its libertarian rhetoric and the politics of cultural grievance, but in the sense that it represents something unspoiled by the duopoly of Tusk and PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński. Whether that’s true is beside the point. It’s working.
At the same time, the left continues its familiar descent into irrelevance. Split between factions and unsure of its moral compass, it has failed to offer a meaningful alternative. But something is shifting.
In cities, among younger voters especially, there is growing frustration that their concerns — housing, healthcare, abortion, civil rights — are not being addressed by the governing coalition. If anyone is poised to harness that discontent, it may be Adrian Zandberg and the Razem (Together) party, the only section of the left with a coherent social policy agenda and a committed, charismatic leader.
The new president will not wait long to assert himself. Nawrocki is poised to release the classified annex to a bombshell 2007 report on the activities of Poland’s military intelligence which, parts of which were published during the first PiS government and sent shockwaves through Polish politics.
The annex reportedly includes the names of politicians, journalists, and businesspeople with links to communist-era military intelligence. Its content remains unknown, but its release could be explosive. And the symbolism will be clear: the presidency is now in the hands of a former director of the Institute of National Remembrance, a figure whose career was built on the politics of historical justice.
The domestic fallout will be immediate, but the international dimension won’t be far behind. Poland is drifting again into institutional deadlock, with the president and prime minister advancing different visions of the country’s role, both at home and abroad.
The constitution offers no clarity on which one leads on foreign policy, and what was once seen as a technical defect now looks like a strategic flaw. With the war in Ukraine ongoing, NATO’s eastern flank under pressure, and European unity fraying, the timing is unforgiving.
Tusk’s team may attempt to pivot outward, hoping to compensate for domestic gridlock by securing wins abroad. European recovery funds, support for Ukraine, and a steady relationship with Washington remain potential sources of credibility.
But here too, Nawrocki’s camp has begun to shape the narrative. Days before the vote, he appeared alongside US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who encouraged Poles to vote for him, and earlier he had traveled to shake hands with President Donald Trump. These carefully timed gestures were aimed less at foreign policy than at home audiences, but the optics have helped his camp to position itself as internationally relevant and capable of opening new diplomatic channels outside the traditional Brussels-Berlin-Paris axis.
And that message is gaining ground just as doubts emerge about the government’s capacity to deliver. If the coalition stumbles and legislative work stalls, relations with the European Commission may be further strained. Funding mechanisms and strategic cooperation depend on institutional clarity, which Poland is unable to offer.
At the root of this crisis lies a familiar miscalculation. For the second time in five years, Civic Platform fielded Trzaskowski as its candidate for the presidency. To some, he is eloquent and sharp, but to many others, he remains emblematic of an urban liberal elite that rarely escapes its own echo chamber.
The decision to run him again, despite warnings from within and beyond the party, now reads as a symptom of deeper political fatigue. Trzaskowski lost to a candidate widely viewed as less prepared and burdened by serious controversies. Tusk, long seen as the master strategist of Poland’s center, may be losing his touch.
To arrest the slide, the pro-European camp will need more than tactical fixes. It must reimagine its leadership, open itself to new faces, and confront entrenched interests within its own provincial networks. Its message must speak to those disillusioned by the post-2023 reality, not just those relieved by the departure of PiS, and offer a vision that is not merely defensive, but aspirational.
If it fails to act, it will not be PiS that topples the pro-European order, but those cheering for anyone and anything outside the long-stagnant Tusk-Kaczyński duopoly. Confederation’s appeal is real, and its incoherence appears to matter less to voters than the offer of a break from the technocratic repetition of familiar political actors.
Ironically, the best path forward for Tusk may be to do what his old rival did. Like Jarosław Kaczyński, who stepped back from formal office while retaining real power, Tusk may need to become the architect of the next chapter rather than its frontman. By letting go of the stage, he may gain what he needs most: a legacy that lasts beyond his own leadership.
Maciej Filip Bukowski is the Head of the Energy and Resilience Program at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation in Warsaw, a non-resident fellow with the Tech Policy Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), and a Research Fellow at the Earth System Governance Project. His upcoming PhD thesis examines the geoeconomics of clean tech policies in great power rivalry between the EU, the US and China.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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