Well, fuck
It really, really is suspicious that those right-wing MAGA Trump Putin guys are always winning on really narrow margins. I can’t recall any election where the “good guy” won like that.
Poland just never learns.
Poland learned plenty. Record turnout, the candidate won by a very slim margin. It’s brexit vote all over again - half the country is indoctrinated rednecks. A TV station had statistical data - voting for the right wing candidate was proportional with shittier education. People after universities voted 70% in favour of Trzaskowski. People who only finished grade school voted 70% in favour of Nawrocki. You can guess which group has more idiots in it.
Yeah but close isnt enough, how many more years is it gonna take before polish people learn to vote liberal, pro eu candidate, not some pro putin idiot
You seen any European elections lately?
They learned in the last Sejm election, but apparently they already forgot what they learned.
In two years the government hardly delivered anything they promised. And not just because Duda was still a president vetoing everything. No surprise people are disappointed.
It was to be expected that the polish government would disappoint to some extent. It’s a coalition of four parties that don’t agree on everything, so it’s to be expected that it’s mostly compromises everyone can kind of live with. But wouldn’t it make more sense then to vote for a president who most likely won’t veto everything, so that the few progressive things the government agrees on can be enacted? If you want progressive politics you vote for progressive parties/people, even if they don’t move stuff forward. At least they don’t move them backwards, so in the next election you can build on a stronger foundation.
Neither does Russia
And in my country, we’re expecting a Babiš-Fiala-Babiš PM situation akin to Trump-Biden-Trump in the US because of the post-Covid recession. At least Babiš didn’t become president in 2023.
How bad is this from an international perspective? Will there be Orban-style EU obstruction? Is he a Putin appeaser?
He has badmouthed Putin before so theres that at least.
The immidiate consequences are probably minor.
Yet Poland managed to finally get rid of PiS in government and just two years later they elect another right-wing populist president that will continue the sabotaging and blockading of said government.
So another 2 years of ineffective government (caused by the voters) it is. Probably followed by the narrative of how they really need to get the nationalists back into government as they are the only ones getting anything done (who cares that “anything” mainly means corruption and weakening democracy…).
Nawrocki is anti Putin. The parliament is controlled by liberals, but having a far right president gives the far right veto power. That means the liberals have a hard time passing decent laws. It does not fully block Poland, but it slows everything down and more controversial laws will be vetoed. Controversial laws being everything the far right finds controversial, so a lot of them would be good from a leftist perspective. If PiS wins the next election Poland would move to an Orban style regime again. If the liberals had won, they would have been able to at least slow it down.
There was already until the last parliament elections, where the pro European candidate Donald Tusk won over the PiS, who destructed the state orban style for 8 years. However real reforms were not possible until now, because the PiS president was blocking any law the government was pushing. Now, with these elections everyone hoped the blocking will have an end, but we were proved wrong. This will likely lead to new parliament elections and PiS will continue to destroy the state.
I think PiS is not Russia-friendly, it’s a bit more complicated in Poland. But idk for sure to be honest.
PiS isn’t pro-Russia so much as it’s anti-EU. They see Brussels the same way they see Moscow: as a sinister foreign power that wants to control Poland, and they see Poland as surrounded by the EU and Russia, with only the USA as a trustworthy ally keeping both in check.
Poland’s always been pretty right-wing.
Because politicians and media keep them so. Often polls would show that public is more progressive than the lawmakers (e.g. about abortion laws), but the ruling politicians will still say how Polish people are not ready for such ‘radical changes’ or just how ‘wrong’ that is…
Assassination on presidents tends to martyrize them
Not necessarily in Poland, but only if they are leftists.
Mama Mia!
Eh, you win some, you lose some, just don’t be much worse than Duda and everything’ll be ok until the next election, no?
We have far right governments in Poland, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands and some more center right governments in other EU member states. This is very bad for human rights and we should be worried by this trend.
Yes, but this guy is not the head of government or and can’t veto EU council decisions, like Orban can. He can block decisions of the new government to undo what PiS has done over the years. In fact, given Poland’s history of right-wing presidents, it is the closest they’ve ever come to having a liberal president. :3 staying optimistic while we wait for the green left to get its act together in a pragmatic way (that has something to offer rural and working families over fascist vibes and neoliberal status-quo (looking at you, France))
I can’t answer definitively for the other countries, but the Netherlands has a far-right party in government, but it’s not the government - that’s a coalition together with three right-wing parties. Certainly not what left-wing folks like to see, but the other three are keeping the far-right one in check somewhat compared to winner-takes-all systems like in the US.
Can also mention that the far-right party in Sweden is currently not in the government, they have an agreement with the government on what they should enact in order to receive their support but they hold no offices.
I can also now add that the Dutch far-right party just stepped out of the government, so now it’s just the three other parties, and presumably new elections later this year 😅
Yeah… no. This guy will block what little good the government tries to do, blame it on immigrants, gays and the left and set the table for a rightwing victory come next election. This is bad.
I wonder how long it would take Russia to take over Poland with Karol Nawrocki as president if the US pulls out of NATO and the rest of the EU and UK refuse to participate in the war. Will he capitulate the same day?
Akshually, unlike in the West, the conservatives in Poland despise Russia with a passion. A conservative president in Poland isn’t going to undermine NATO (but for the EU, it may).
I see your newly elected president’s fear of Russia. He should know better than anyone else (since he studied history) that for centuries Poland has been betrayed by its closest allies. And now, instead of cooperating with Ukraine, he is setting the Poles against Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians against the Poles (which, of course, benefits Russia). Hoping that the US will help defend Poland if Russians attack. But these are vain hopes - because as before, so now the US and the EU will betray Poland, you have the one and only friend, and it is Ukraine. Very soon you will see for yourself. Lets be clear peace negotiations are just a screen for a full-scale invasion in Poland
Am I talking to an LLM? What does that have to do with anything?
You still do not get? NATO without USA is dead. Do you really think that Trump will protect Poland meanwhile betraying Ukraine?) Do not be naive. Trump promised Ukraine, Belarus and Poland to Putin in exchange for help in war against muslims
I myself abstained this time (just voted both). Voting for Nawrocki would be against Poland and voting for Trzaskowski would be against my personal interest as an individual. There wasn’t lesser evil this time and nothing would change regardless.
Edit: I want public healthcare — which neither candidates supports. Trzaskowskis party literally proposed to reduce the healthcare budget by 20bln like a month ago
I want marriage equality — which neither candidate supports. Trzaskowski is said to be in favour but he never said it straigh up and he vocally opposes same-sex adoption.
I want affordable housing — which neither candidate supports. Both parties similarly had their housing programmes which caused the market prices to soar and opposed public housing.
I want ecology — both candidates oppose nuclear power and Trzaskowskis party literally cut public forestry budget and increased the deforestation rate
I want the church to shut up and stop stealing public money — Trzaskowskis party, despite being called “anticlerical” gave the 20% increase of the Church Budget in 2025. Their original promise was to reduce it to 0.
I want a reasonable migration policy — both candidates’ parties use migrants as scapegoats and support limiting asylum laws.
I want access to abortion — which Nawrocki opposes; Trzaskowski himself supports it, but some of his party and majority of his coalition doesn’t and will never vote for it
Both candidates are shit in their own way
I know the US fucked up big time in our last election, but the least I hoped for was for the rest of the world to learn from our fuck-up. It’s disappointing to see other countries following in our dumbass footsteps.
The mistake the US did isn’t the failure of voting for the lesser evil. I mean it was a mistake but even if you avoided that and saved the center for another four years, the center would have impoverished people further over those four years and would have fallen into the right even harder afterwards. The real failure that’s driving all of this is letting the system get usurped by corporations and oligarchs which then never presents any choices that stop the wealth transfer from the majority to the top. Instead its always faster transfer or slower transfer. The center is unsustainable and it is very likely falling through around the world. If not now, then over the next little while. Until a non-neoliberal left takes over and unfucks the system like it did the last time around post the Great Depression.
The Left can run on an anti oligarchy platform. So another four years would have helped a lot in building that. If you take the US as an example, Bernie did do pretty well after 8years of Obama. He was stopped by the Centrist establishment, but things have gotten worse since then and the old school Democrats are much less popular.
On the other hand the left refuses to get off its ass unless the right is in charge, so extra time ends up being meaningless. Note that I’m not arguing for accelerationism, but “if we had just another four years…” is half the reason Western democracies are in this mess.
The Left does protest under centrist governments as well. LGBTQ+, climate, anti racism and so forth is run as well and often massive. They even win from time to time, as can be by same sex marriage, new climate laws and so forth.
They even win from time to time, as can be by same sex marriage, new climate laws and so forth.
They win sometimes, but lose a lot. The wins are nice, but this is simply not a sustainable dynamic, as seen from the rise of the far right and climate targets becoming less and less likely to fulfill by the day.
Do you seriously believe centrist want to let the left win? They want to do nothing. However under a right wing government winning just means nothing happens.
The goal of the left should be to be in charge and not the center or the right. So the question should be under whom is it easier to take power. The centrist will leave the electoral system in place, so there is a clear plan. The right wants to create a dictatorship, meaning the way to power can only go through revolution. That however is much much harder and in the meantime things will get worse much more quickly.
So a centrist government is better for the left. Even when the system is broken.
If you want to see that in action, just look at the 2024 French parliament election. Centrist in power and both the left and right won. In the UK the right was in charge and the center won. In the German election with a somewhat center left government the center lost votes, whereas the left and right won.
if you dont explain your “personal interests”, we assume you are just an idiot
I want public healthcare — which neither candidates supports. Trzaskowskis party literally proposed to reduce the healthcare budget by 20bln like a month ago
I want marriage equality — which neither candidate supports. Trzaskowski is said to be in favour but he never said it straigh up and he vocally opposes same-sex adoption.
I want affordable housing — which neither candidate supports. Both parties similarly had their housing programmes which caused the market prices to soar and opposed public housing.
I want ecology — both candidates oppose nuclear power and Trzaskowskis party literally cut public forestry budget and increased the deforestation rate
I want the church to shut up and stop stealing public money — Trzaskowskis party, despite being called “anticlerical” gave the 20% increase of the Church Budget in 2025. Their original promise was to reduce it to 0.
I want a reasonable migration policy — both candidates’ parties use migrants as scapegoats and support limiting asylum laws.
I want access to abortion — which Nawrocki opposes; Trzaskowski himself supports it, but some of his party and majority of his coalition doesn’t and will never vote for it
Both candidates are shit in their own way
I can see your points. But it is still the stupidest tactic to stay away from the election. If one candidate is even 1% better than the other, vote for that one. People like you are the reason why the right-wingers always win. They go out and vote. Now the others have decided for you and you’ve got what you deserve.
I got what I deserve? And what is that? Nothing will change and nothing would change if the other guy won. It’s a stalemate
This.
He’s against the gays, the immigrants, even against the war refugees, against any women rights, and this is every pole in UK
Quite the opposite. See my comment above
Out of interest, what personal interests would the other candidate have been against? I’m genuinely interested and I’d rather ask you than just downvote like others have done that probably have no idea about either candidate.
I want public healthcare — which neither candidates supports. Trzaskowskis party literally proposed to reduce the healthcare budget by 20bln like a month ago
I want marriage equality — which neither candidate supports. Trzaskowski is said to be in favour but he never said it straigh up and he vocally opposes same-sex adoption.
I want affordable housing — which neither candidate supports. Both parties similarly had their housing programmes which caused the market prices to soar and opposed public housing.
I want ecology — both candidates oppose nuclear power and Trzaskowskis party literally cut public forestry budget and increased the deforestation rate
I want the church to shut up and stop stealing public money — Trzaskowskis party, despite being called “anticlerical” gave the 20% increase of the Church Budget in 2025. Their original promise was to reduce it to 0.
I want a reasonable migration policy — both candidates’ parties use migrants as scapegoats and support limiting asylum laws.
I want access to abortion — which Nawrocki opposes; Trzaskowski himself supports it, but some of his party and majority of his coalition doesn’t and will never vote for it
Both candidates are shit in their own way
The right keeps voting the right and thus making sure the candidates can get more right.
Meanwhile the left abstain, making sure the right is in power.
Gg.
If my choice is right wing (which will empower the right wing government I don’t support) or far right (which will fight the right wing government I don’t support) then the choice is nonexistent
Btw calling other people idiots will only create more tension between the two parties, so please try to be a little bit nicer. Thx
Idiot bigot.
See my edit
Same. Don’t worry about the negative comments
You will regret this sooner than you expect and still find excuses not to admit it was stupid.
If all you know about the two parties who have been ruling Poland for the past 20 years is that one of them doesn’t “beat the gays” then I don’t think you should be judging our individual voting strategies.
Sorry, but both candidates aren’t good enough for this position. Now we have 15 October Coaltion and Nawrocki. Cannot be worse than it was with this combination.
One candidate was a nazi thug, the other wasn’t. I feel.like I repeat myself so many times, but once again:
Nazis always turn up to vote. The left loves to find a reason not to. The Nazis know this and have developed a playback to win. Their plan is simple but highly effective: use a wedge issue to persuade enough left wing to just not turn up.
Also, an election this close… I’m sorry, but sitting out this one very much means you are happy to have a thug as your president.
Imo you overinterpret this. And no, not happy.
Anyway, my point is that I didn’t want to compromise on anything or choose the lesser of two evils. It’s either more GDP for health, nuclear power plants, more investment in Poland, and a rational approach to migration, or it doesn’t matter who I choose.
I didn’t want to compromise on anything or choose the lesser of two evils.
We know, you poor fool. That’s what you always say before you let the greater evil kill your neighbors.
