Poles rally behind competing candidates and visions as presidential runoff nears

WARSAW, Poland -- Poles traveled from crossed the state to articulation dueling patriotic marches successful Warsaw connected Sunday, led by the 2 men vying for the presidency successful a June 1 runoff predetermination expected to beryllium some adjacent and consequential for the nation’s future.

At the caput of 1 march is Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, a wide urbanite who supports termination rights and LGBTQ+ inclusion. A adjacent governmental state of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, helium is backed by Tusk’s pro-European Civic Coalition, which has led a centrist conjugation authorities since precocious 2023.

Trzaskowski antecedently ran for president successful 2020, narrowly losing to incumbent Andrzej Duda, whose 2nd and last five-year word ends this summer.

Opposite him is Karol Nawrocki, a blimpish historiographer backed by the nationalist blimpish Law and Justice party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023. He heads the state-backed Institute of National Remembrance, which nether Law and Justice became a conveyance for nationalist humanities narratives.

Earlier this month, the White House released photos of Nawrocki and U.S. President Donald Trump gathering successful the Oval Office — a tacit but unmistakable amusement of Trump’s support.

Recently, allegations surfaced that Nawrocki swindled an aged antheral retired of an flat — but his supporters successful Warsaw connected Sunday said they didn't judge the allegations.

Many of those who joined Sunday’s marches had traveled from crossed Poland, a state of astir 38 million, not conscionable to enactment a campaigner but to rally down sharply divergent visions for the nation’s future.

“It’s precocious clip for honesty to win. It’s precocious clip for integrity to win. It’s precocious clip for justness to win,” Trzaskowski told his supporters astatine the commencement of his march. “This is what these elections are about. We person virtually the past fewer days up of us. We request afloat determination, each ballot is needed.”

The runoff follows a first-round ballot connected May 18 that narrowed the archetypal tract of 13 candidates to Trzaskowski and Nawrocki. Recent polls amusement them moving neck-and-neck, wrong the borderline of error, making the result intolerable to predict.

Both men are present courting voters who backed the hard-right libertarian Sławomir Mentzen, who won astir 15% successful the archetypal round. Known for his nationalist rhetoric and pro-market views, Mentzen had a beardown beingness connected TikTok and received 35% of the ballot among 18- to 29-year-olds, according to an Ipsos exit poll.

Nawrocki supporters told The Associated Press up of the march that they saw him arsenic the embodiment of the conservative, patriotic values they grew up with. They voiced absorption to termination and LGBTQ+ rights, and said Nawrocki — similar Trump — would reconstruct what galore called “normality.”

Trzaskowski supporters countered that their campaigner would amended support the country’s interests by strengthening ties with European partners specified arsenic France and Germany. In their view, those alliances are captious to Poland’s security, particularly successful the look of Russia’s warfare successful Ukraine and fears that a victorious Russia could question to reassert power implicit parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

During its 8 years successful power, Law and Justice was accused by the European Union of undermining antiauthoritarian norms, peculiarly judicial independency and property freedom. Trzaskowski has pledged to enactment Tusk’s efforts to reconstruct the independency of Poland’s judiciary — thing that the blimpish President Duda has stymied.

Romanian President-elect Nicusor Dan, a pro-EU centrist who pulled disconnected an upset successful Romania’s statesmanlike election to bushed retired a hard-right nationalist, traveled to Warsaw, gathering with Tusk and joining the march.

While Law and Justice turned state-funded media into instruments of governmental propaganda, critics accidental Tusk’s authorities has besides politicized nationalist broadcasting — albeit successful a little overt and assertive fashion.