Page 5 - bne IntelliNews Poland Outlook 2025

being a key voter cohort in the run-off round.
Trzaskowski’s campaign is likely counting on the anti-PiS effect that helped Tusk in parliamentary election in October 2023. But the bigger the voter fatigue with the government, the weaker the anti-PiS sentiment will be. That might push Trzaskowski to woo the far-right voters more towards the end of the campaign.
Nawrocki will seek support within the far-right more naturally, knowing that his standing with the progressives is nearly non-existent. His challenge is, however, that he has less experience in campaigning than Trzaskowski, who only narrowly lost to Duda in 2020. Nawrocki is generally a little-known figure (this is partly made up for by the fact the election is going to be less about personalities and more about representing the two sides of Poland’s gaping political divide).
Another major problem is PiS’s lack of money after the PKW, Poland’s election watchdog, withheld the payout of a state subsidy for the party after alleged shenanigans in its spending in the 2023 campaign.
The election date has not been set yet, but it is certain that it will take place in May, with the run-off vote following two weeks later in May or in June.
Some legal experts point to a risk that the outcome of the presidential election might cause if the PiS candidate were to lose. PiS could contest the election’s validity in the Supreme Court’s Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs. The chamber’s legitimacy is not recognised by the government and the EU’s top courts, as it is seen to be stacked by judges nominated under the judiciary reform devised by PiS, which sought greater political control over the courts.
A presidential election in the throes of legal wrangling over the legal position of a part of the Supreme Court – however absurd that may sound – could still have a real impact on market valuations, be they of government bonds or the Polish zloty, as well as on investment and thus on economic growth.
5 Poland Outlook 2025 www.intellinews.com