The candidate for the presidential elections in Poland, Rafal Trzaskowski, June 28, 2020 – Petr David Josek / AP / SIPA
- This Sunday, in Poland, is held the first round of the presidential election.
- Among the ten candidates in the running, including the outgoing president and candidate of the Law and Justice party, Andrzej Duda, the mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski appears as his main rival.
- Candidate of the Civic Coalition (PO), party of the liberal center-right, Rafal Trzaskowski, 48 years old, positions himself as the antithesis of Andrzej Duda, of which he stands out by his positions in societal positions, in favor of the LBGT community .
- This polyglot, former MEP and former minister, wants to bring together opponents of the ultra-conservative party in power.
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“We cannot live in such a state of tensions, conflicts and crises. Do not look at me as an enemy, because I am not. There is no hatred in me ”. Whereas Poland,
the first round of the presidential election is held this Sunday, the candidate of the centric party Civic Coalition (KO) Rafal Trzaskowski tries the appeasement in an open letter addressed to the members and sympathizers of the party Law and Justice. He hopes to beat their own candidate,
outgoing president Andrzej Duda. The letter says at least a lot about the political climate in the country, where passions have been unleashed for years between the supporters of the ruling power and its opponents.
In such a context, will Trzaskowski be able to prevail? For the moment, it is the candidate of the ultra-conservative party, Andrzej Duda, who dominates in the voting intentions: according to a poll published Friday, 45% of the Poles would vote for him, when Trzaskowski would collect 20% of the votes. According to another estimate, the one who imposes himself as the main rival of the outgoing would get 26%. The battle promises to be close in any case if it passes in the first round. A total of ten candidates are running for these elections. During the last legislative elections, Pis had once again dominated, winning more than 45% of the vote.
“A kind of Kennedy”
Nevertheless, at 48, Rafal Trzaskowski arouses hope on the side of the Poles who are tired of the current power. “He travels a lot across Poland. His images with his supporters go well on television (…) He benefits from the effect of novelty, is open, has centrist positions and is rather delicate in his public expression “, observes the political scientist Pawel Stepien in the columns of the daily, classified on the left, Gazeta Wyborcza. “He’s a kind of … well, his supporters say it, a kind of Kennedy, or Obama, or Macron.” Someone like that. This image already gives him some precious points. Of course, there is still a long way to go, “political scientist Tomasz Płudowski explained on Sunday on
France Info.
However, the politician is not without experience. Between 2013 and 2014, he was Minister of Administration and Digital then Foreign Affairs in the government of Donald Tusk, the very divisive ex-Prime Minister. He shares with the former President of the European Council his proximity to the European institutions. Speaking English, French, Russian and Italian, this graduate of the College of Europe was a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2013. In France, he was also knight of the Legion of Honor in France for have “worked for Franco-Polish cooperation at European level”.
Mayor of Warsaw, LGBT + support
In October 2018, he won the municipal elections in Warsaw, he won 56% of the votes and first round and became the mayor of the Polish capital. But quickly, Rafal Trzaskowski divides opinion by signing in 2019 the “LGBT + declaration” against homophobia. A charter which commits it in particular to take measures in schools, to support students harassed because of their sexual orientation or to promote sex education according to WHO standards.
Mocked as the “Gay Pride candidate” by his very right-wing opponents, his approach led to the response of several dozen communities which declared themselves as zones “ free from LGBT ideology ” In a text published on Facebook, he also plays with the “haters” of the Law and Justice party by not hesitating to qualify as “Semitic philosophy”. Nor does it exclude the idea of restoring Jewish property, a politically sensitive subject in Poland.
His candidacy for the presidential election was formalized in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, on May 15. Like the other countries, Poland is victim of Covid-19 as well as an economic crisis which comes to break the growth of the country. The elections, which were scheduled to take place in May, were finally postponed. What perhaps disturb the ballot and instill more doubts about the advance of Andrzej Duda.
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