Socially Conservative Karol Nawrocki Elected Poland’s New President

Jerusalem, 3 June, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Warsaw (PAP) – Karol Nawrocki, a candidate backed by the socially conservative Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party, won the presidential runoff vote in Poland on Sunday, having garnered 50.89 percent of the vote, Sylwester Marciniak, the head of the National Electoral Commission (PKW), told reporters.

Marciniak read out a PKW resolution to this effect which officially confirmed the election of Nawrocki as Poland’s new president, and added that it would be published in the Journal of Laws.

Nawrocki, who secured 29.54 of the vote in the first round on May 18, will take over as Poland’s next president for a five-year term in August, replacing Andrzej Duda.

Nawrocki is a historian, since 2021 the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, who graduated from the Institute of History of the University of Gdańsk, and in 2013 obtained a doctorate in humanities. In 2017, he became the director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk and held this position until 2021. He has not held any political positions so far.

Rafal Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and a member of the ruling centrist party Civic Coalition (KO), secured 49.11 percent of the vote. Trzaskowski had won the first round of the presidential election on May 18 with 31.36 percent of the vote.

Nawrocki was supported by 10,606,877 voters and Trzaskowski by 10,237,286. This means that he won by a margin of 369,591 votes or 1.78 percent more than Trzaskowski.

The turnout, at 71.63 percent, was the highest in the history of Poland’s presidential elections since 1990, the PKW head said.

Voters can file protests against the presidential election with the Supreme Court until June 16.