The last-minute runner shading Andrzej Duda

Rafal Trzaskowski is the liberal Warsaw mayor who opposes Europeanism to the ruling party’s populism.

None of this was foreseen: the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, supported by the conservative party that governs Poland, Law and Justice (the PiS of Jaroslaw Kaczynski), saw an opponent rise up out of nowhere who shuffled the accounts. Duda’s favoritism remained, but eroded, and yesterday’s vote resulted in the need for a second round. And the enthusiasm became such that the turnout at the polls was 48%, in the middle of the afternoon, 14 points more than in 2015. A record.

He is 48 years old, called Rafal Trzaskowski and is the center-right mayor of Warsaw, who runs for the Civic Coalition (KO), led by his party, the Civic Platform that ruled Poland between 2007 and 2015 (namely with Donald Tusk , who has since become President of the European Council).

And, in the space of just over a month, it won 30% of the voting intentions, against 41% of Duda (down from 60%), confirmed yesterday in the projections at the bottom of the ballot box (30.4% against 41.8% ), and therefore the second round on 12 July. And there, the polls are tougher: the final difference could be a few thousand votes, to one side or the other.

One month campaign

Trzaskowski showed up for the race on May 15 after KO candidate Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska saw his popularity fade to below 5% for calling for a boycott of the election before it was postponed. The covid-19 pandemic had prompted PiS to announce the maintenance of the consultation for May 10, but by correspondence. Postponed in extremis, elections were by post only in areas most affected by the disease.

The mayor of the Polish capital again made KO “a potential threat”, according to analyst Ben Stanley, from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities Warsaw, quoted by “El País”. Because? Because the president, although with limited powers, can veto legislation from the parliament, controlled by PiS, which, among other reforms, implemented one that makes the executive’s judicial power dependent. And it has been widely contested by the European Union, which has highlighted the risks to the rule of law.

Nor did Duda’s visit to Washington, on the first visit of a foreign head of state to the White House since the pandemic began, guarantee victory at the first. Not even with the idea left in the air of installing in Poland part of the US military contingent that Trump announced he wanted to remove from Germany, in a maneuver considered internationally risky given the proximity of Russia.

Liberal, pro-European and cosmopolitan – the KO has more strength in urban areas, while PiS controls the rural world -, Trzaskowski defends sex education and prefers to leave the doubt about same-sex marriage. That is why he is classified as an “extremist” by PiS. On the contrary, Duda said for days that the LGBT community advocates “an ideology more destructive than communism” against which it is imperative to “protect children”.

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