![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/icon-text_size.svg.svg+xml\"){kind=icon}
<\/a><\/p>\n- \n
- \u00a0 Small<\/li>\n
- \u00a0 Medium<\/li>\n
- \u00a0 Large<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/c1_5636631.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAn exit poll is expected as soon as ballots close and election officials predict that the final result will be known on Monday <\/p>\n
WARSAW – Poles began voting on Sunday in a tight presidential election with major implications for the country’s role in Europe, and for abortion and LGBTQ rights.<\/p>\n
Warsaw’s pro-EU mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, 53, an ally of the centrist government, faces off against nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki, 42, with opinion polls showing that the race was too tight to call.<\/p>\n
Polls close at 9pm (1900 GMT) in the EU and NATO country, which borders Ukraine and has been a key supporter of its neighbour in the war against Russia.<\/p>\n
An exit poll is expected as soon as ballots close and election officials predict that the final result will be known on Monday.<\/p>\n
A victory for Trzaskowski would be a major boost for the progressive agenda of the government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Council president.<\/p>\n
It could mean significant social changes such as the introduction of civil partnerships for same-sex couples and an easing of the near-total ban on abortion.<\/p>\n
Presidents in Poland, a fast-growing economy of 38 million people, have the power to veto legislation and are also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.<\/p>\n
Victory for Nawrocki would embolden the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, and could lead to fresh parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n
Many Nawrocki supporters want stricter curbs on immigration and advocate for conservative values and more sovereignty for the country within the European Union.<\/p>\n
“We should not give in to European pressure,” 40-year-old Agnieszka Prokopiuk, a homemaker, said ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n
“We need to make our own way… and not succumb to trends from the West,” she told AFP in the city of Biala Podlaska in eastern Poland near the Belarus border.<\/p>\n
Tomasz Czublun, a 48-year-old mechanic, said: “The European Union is important but the sovereignty of our country is much more important.”<\/p>\n
– Ukraine –<\/p>\n
Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a politics expert, called the election “a real clash of civilisations” because of the wide policy differences between the candidates.<\/p>\n
Many Trzaskowski voters support greater integration within the EU and an acceleration of social reforms.<\/p>\n
Malgorzata Wojciechowska, a tour guide and teacher in her fifties, said Polish women “unfortunately do not have the same rights as our European friends”.<\/p>\n
“I hope that Rafal Trzaskowski will relaunch the debate on abortion so that we can finally live in a free country where we can have our own opinion,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n
The election is also being watched closely in Ukraine, which is seeking to bolster international diplomatic support in its negotiations with Russia as its resistance to Moscow’s invasion grinds on.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki, an admirer of US President Donald Trump, opposes NATO membership for Kyiv and has called for curbs on benefits for the estimated one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland.<\/p>\n
He used his last campaign hours on Friday to leave flowers at a monument to Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.<\/p>\n
“It was a genocide against the Polish people,” he said.<\/p>\n
The election’s final result is expected to hinge on whether Trzaskowski can mobilise enough supporters and whether far-right voters will cast their ballots for Nawrocki.<\/p>\n
Far-right candidates secured more than 21% of the vote in the election’s first round, which Trzaskowski won by a razor-thin margin of 31% against 30% for Nawrocki.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PUBLISHED : 1 Jun 2025 at 12:45 \u00a0 Small \u00a0 Medium \u00a0 Large An exit poll is expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[26054,14235,2000,299,5187,770,7574,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-148833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-election","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-poland","14":"tag-president","15":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}