Foreign policy under Prime Minister Donald Tusk, LGBTQ rights and abortion have been major issues on the campaign trail.
Voters in Poland are casting their ballots to elect the next president in what is expected to be a close contest between the liberal mayor of Warsaw and a conservative historian.
Polls opened at 7am (05:00 GMT) in Sunday’s election, and the results of exit polls are expected to be released after the polls close at 9pm (19:00 GMT). The final official results of the contest, in which 13 candidates are running, are expected on Monday.
The frontrunners are Rafal Trzaskowski, the pro-European mayor of the Polish capital, and Karol Nawrocki, a historian backed by the nationalist Law and Justice party, which lost power 18 months ago.
Neither is expected to reach the required 50 percent threshold for victory, making a run-off on June 1 likely.
The election is being closely watched for whether voters endorse the pro-European path set by Prime Minister Donald Tusk or favour a return to the nationalist vision of Law and Justice, which ran the country from 2015 to 2023.
Tusk was elected prime minister in December 2023 after defeating Law and Justice, which had engaged in repeated disputes with the European Union.
The Polish president has limited executive powers but is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, steers foreign policy and can veto legislation.
Security fears loom large
The campaign has largely revolved around foreign policy at a time of heightened security concerns in Poland, a key NATO and EU member bordering war-torn Ukraine, and fears that the United States’s commitment to European security could be wavering in the President Donald Trump era.
Trzaskowski, deputy leader of Tusk’s centre-right Civic Platform, has pledged to cement Poland’s role as a major player at the heart of Europe in contrast with Law and Justice, which was frequently at odds with Brussels over rule-of-law concerns.
“I would definitely strengthen relations with our partners … within NATO and the EU,” Trzaskowski told state broadcaster TVP Info on Friday.
Social issues have also been a major theme on the campaign trail with Nawrocki framing himself as a guardian of conservative values and Trzaskowski drawing support from liberal voters for his pledges to back abortion and LGBTQ rights.
Malgorzata Mikoszewska, a 41-year-old tourism agency employee, told the AFP news agency that she was a fan of Trzaskowski’s liberal stance on social issues.
“Above all, I hope for the liberalisation of the law on abortion and sexual minorities,” she said.
Apartment scandal
Nawrocki’s campaign received a boost when he met with Trump in the Oval Office of the White House this month.
But it then took a hit over allegations that he bought an apartment in Gdansk from an elderly man in return for a promise to provide lifelong care for the man, which was not delivered. Nawrocki denied the allegations.
Polish authorities have reported attempts at foreign interference during the campaign, including denial-of-service attacks targeting the websites of parties in Tusk’s ruling coalition and allegations by a state research institute that political advertisements on Facebook were funded from overseas.
“With Nawrocki as president, the government would be paralysed, and that could eventually lead to the fall of the ruling coalition,” political scientist Anna Materska-Sosnowska told AFP.
His victory could see “the return of the populists with renewed force” at the next general election, she said.
The new president will replace Andrzej Duda, who has served two terms and is ineligible to stand again.
