Sometime in the Twenties, Józef Piłsudski quipped that the “most beloved state” of the Polish people is indecision. Almost exactly a century on, the modern nation’s founding father has never been more right, with last week’s presidential election resulting in an almost literal dead heat. Though the conservative Karol Nawrocki finally carried the day, the populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) candidate only defeated Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, by just 1.78% of the vote, with less than 370,000 ballots separating the two men in a country of 37 million.
Since Nawrocki’s win, commentators of all stripes have been eager to pigeonhole the election as a win for Russia, as the MAGA-fication of Poland, or as the nail in the coffin of Poland’s warm relationship with Ukraine. In truth, it’s none of those things — politics here is never so simple. The razor-thin margin of Sunday’s election, and indeed the divided, hamstrung government that has existed here for the last 18 months, is emblematic of a deeper fight about the nature of Polish identity in the 21st century. Caught between a future at the heart of the EU, and the familiar, reassuring hearth of traditional Catholic values, Poland is scrabbling for its future, even as it faces the old security challenges Piłsudski knew so well.
In the first place, Nawrocki’s win has crystallised the resurgent ascendancy of the country’s Right, this time with a new anti-establishment cadre of Gen Z acolytes at its back. It’s true, of course, that the guiding star of this quintessentially Polish brand of nationalism lies not in Europe: but in Trump’s America. Not only do its true believers take a “Poland First” approach on immigration and security, but their views on taxation, government regulation, and gun ownership are much closer to Trump’s than those of the PiS. Having posed with Nawrocki during his visit to the Oval Office in May, Trump hailed him this week as an “ally” whose victory had shocked “all in Europe”. But regardless of what Poland’s populists do next, what the country has achieved over the last three or four years cannot be undone. Behind Nawrocki’s win lies the simple fact that this country has left its mark on Europe, becoming indispensable to the very stability of the continent no matter who’s in charge.
The seeds of Poland’s modern-day dualism were sown long before Donald Tusk, the country’s embattled centrist prime minister, took power in 2023. Rather, they stretch back to the twilight days of communist rule. In 1989, after years of chaos and martial law, the country’s Soviet-backed regime agreed to sit down for discussions with Lech Wałęsa and other Solidarity leaders. The talks were ostensibly to diffuse tensions — but in practice ended up setting the stage for the collapse of communism right across Eastern Europe. Alongside Wałęsa, Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński also attended the meetings, with the twin brothers going on to form the PiS in 2001.
The PiS emerged from the ruins of Solidarity Electoral Action, a diverse coalition of parties created as the political wing of Solidarity in the mid-Nineties. Civic Platform, led by Tusk and supported by Wałęsa, was another party to emerge from the ashes of Solidarity Electoral Action. Though Tusk and the Kaczyńskis had common roots in Poland’s anti-communist centre-right, in other words, by the early 2000s their paths had diverged. Civic Platform set its sights on EU membership, while the PiS defended the Polish social conservative tradition.
Over the next two decades, both parties led governments in Poland, while drifting further and further apart. After joining the EU in 2004, Poland reaped enormous economic benefits, not only becoming the fastest growing economy in Europe, but also gaining the rare distinction of being the only country on the continent not to experience recession in 2008. But in the eyes of the PiS — and the growing number of Poles who saw traditional Catholic values as central to their identity — the boom came with trade offs. Like other conservatives in Europe, they felt that on the road to European integration, something deep within the national soul had begun to slip away. Soon enough, they began to castigate Tusk, Civic Platform, and all liberal-minded Poles, dismissing them as foreign interlopers intent on selling the country out to the old German nemesis. For their part, Poland’s liberals returned the favour. Centred in the cities and more Left-leaning areas in western Poland, they characterised the PiS as the party of backward, provincial cultists, holding the nation back from fulfilling its ambitions.
The pivotal moment came in 2015, when the PiS won a majority in both houses of parliament and secured the presidency for Andrzej Duda, giving the party broad control over the country’s institutions. In the name of completing decommunisation, the PiS reordered Poland’s courts, stacking the constitutional tribunal with loyal judges, all while tightening abortion laws, politicising state media, and cracking down on LGBT rights. Amid the battles with Brussels that followed, Poland’s liberals no longer saw themselves merely as pro-EU advocates fighting to pull their country out of the prejudices of the village — they were now freedom fighters trying to save Poland from a hostile internal takeover.
Into this tumult stepped Russia. In 2021, when with Russian backing Belarusian dictator Lukashenko began luring migrants to the border of the EU, before forcing them to cross into countries like Poland, the PiS was catapulted into the European spotlight. The party was now not only defending Poland’s national character from the scourge of liberalism, but Europe itself from Putin’s hybrid warfare. The fact he chose migrants as his weapon of choice made things even more convenient — its fight against European multiculturalism had become intertwined with Poland’s ancient struggle with the Kremlin.
“The party was now not only defending Poland’s national character from the scourge of liberalism, but Europe itself from Putin’s hybrid warfare.”
The start of the war in Ukraine further enhanced the PiS’s role on the European stage, taking Poland as a whole along with it. The party’s leaders became the face of Europe’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees, and the facilitators of Ukraine’s defense, as Warsaw got its first real taste of international prestige. But the moment also gave Poland something else — an opportunity to merge its EU aspirations with its traditional anti-Russian animus. Now, rather than challenging the European order, Polish nationalism was something the EU and Nato not only commended but actually demanded. In other words, then, the PiS had got the best of both worlds, and for a brief moment had bridged the divide that had been growing in Poland since Tusk and the Kaczyński brothers went their separate ways.
Yet before long, things fell apart once again, this time with help from a new brand of populist Rightists — for whom the PiS was an inadequate guardian of Polishness. Fuelled by farmers’ protests over Ukrainian grain imports, anger over perceived preferential treatment of Ukrainians refugees, and a good dose of historical grievance over the unresolved massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War, the Polish far-Right, led by the Confederation Party, pushed the PiS to adopt an ever-harsher line on Ukraine. Not that Ukraine is the only issue these new nationalists care about. Worries about immigrants from non-European countries do too, even as Confederation also calls for economic libertarianism and continues the familiar refrain that Poland’s business interests and political future are being outsourced to Brussels insiders.
Even so, Ukraine has risen to become the essential issue of Polish politics. To be sure, rearming at home and backing Nato abroad are still causes that unify almost everyone from Warsaw to Wrocław. But for Confederation, and increasingly for the PiS too, they are no longer the Europeanist projects they once were — even as they have increasingly begun to see Ukrainians in Poland as an impediment to Polish sovereignty rather than a boon.
“Ukraine has risen to become the essential issue of Polish politics.”
The pivotal moment in the PiS’s shift took place late last month, after the first round of voting, when Confederation’s candidate Sławomir Mentzen came third behind Nawrocki. That led Mentzen to invite his PiS rival to appear on his YouTube channel and make his case to Confederation’s voters ahead of the runoff. Without hesitation and on camera, Nawrocki signed a document in support of Confederation’s agenda, notably pledging to oppose Ukraine’s Nato membership. The PiS’s fellowship with Confederation was sealed, and the tactic largely worked: over 88% of Mentzen supporters in the first round voted for Nawrocki in the second. Whatever happens over the weeks ahead, it seems clear that Poland is headed for a PiS-Confederation coalition in 2027, with Tusk’s fragile coalition probably splintering.
For now, though, Poland will remain in stasis, with political gridlock set to continue. It’s ironic, then, that the very voters who ended up delivering Nawrocki his victory were those who’d once yearned for a more dynamic political landscape — and for more options outside the PiS-Civic Platform duopoly. Driven by frustration with the establishment, Mentzen’s effective and direct social media presence, and a desire to return to traditional Polish roots, a slim majority of young people voted for Right-wing populist parties in the first round of the election, subsequently supporting Nawrocki in the runoff. By embracing their desire for more radical ideas and aligning itself with Confederation in the long-term, the PiS may well reinvent itself too, ensuring the tug-of-war with Poland’s liberals remains as energetic as ever.
For its part, Civic Coalition has had to adapt too. Despite his reputation as an urban progressive, Trzaskowki ran a more conservative campaign than expected, even going so far as criticising some social programs for Ukrainians in Poland. Though it clearly didn’t help him, he won’t be the last liberal to appeal to the increasingly conservative masses before the decade is out. Having already moved Rightward on migration, Tusk is also flexing his conservative muscles on the European stage, for instance rallying against the Green Deal earlier this year by framing it as a threat to European competitiveness. In a testament to how much Poland has moved the needle on the continent, meanwhile, many other countries are now following Tusk’s lead.
We shouldn’t exaggerate here. Though his own days as prime minister are numbered, Polish liberals are unlikely to wholly cave to the rising Right anytime soon. The record turnout of Sunday’s vote proved that despite the country’s polarisation, and despite the obstacles in their way, pro-EU Poles will continue to be a force to be reckoned with so long as there remains space for Poland at Europe’s top table.
Cliché though it may be, Poles are capable of overcoming their differences and banding together in the face of adversity. Back in the interwar years, Piłsudski shaped the country’s trajectory as he saw fit, but the Poles themselves were never able to get over their indecisiveness until the Nazis and Soviets came knocking in 1939. In today’s Poland, though, waiting that long may not be an option — a synthesis in national identity will necessarily have to emerge, not only for Poland’s own national security, but if Europe wants to defend itself against whatever Russia has in store for Nato’s east.
Poland’s longtime political divisions haven’t hampered its rise so far, but as it enters a new arena of geopolitical competition, the rules of the game have changed. If it hopes to expand its influence in Europe, solidify its brand — and resist Russian imperialism all at the same time — it will have to break through the glass ceiling currently limiting its rise. Once it does so, a vision that unites forward-looking Europeanism with a positivistic nationalism will be Poland’s only ticket in town. Even in the interwar years, Piłsudski understood this well. “Poland will be great,” the marshal once said, “or it won’t be at all.”
