At a press conference in Vilnius on Monday, President Andrzej Duda commented for the first time on the results of the second round of the presidential election.
“I hope that for Prime Minister Tusk and the government, this is an unambiguous signal from the Poles that they expect the kind of policy in their majority that the President-elect proposes and that Karol Nawrocki preached during his campaign,” said the President.
Both candidates, in their post-election speeches, declared their intention to build bridges in a divided society.
Karol Nawrocki, the candidate backed by the Law and Justice Party, remained hopeful after the exit poll results—and his optimism proved justified, as later polls and the official results from the State Electoral Commission confirmed his victory.
“I believe that tomorrow we will wake up with our President Karol Nawrocki, who will put together a half-crawled Poland,” praised the PiS-backed candidate.
Rafał Trzaskowski, after exit polls suggested he was winning, said he would be the president of all Poles.
“I believe that the first, most important task of the president of Poland will be to reach out to all those who did not vote for me,” he said.
Minimal advantage
At Monday’s conference, PKW chairman Sylwester Marciniak officially announced that Karol Tadeusz Nawrocki received 10,606,877 valid votes, while Rafał Kazimierz Trzaskowski got 10,237,286. The difference between them was fewer than 370,000 votes, or 1.78 percentage points – the smallest gap in a presidential run-off since 1989.
This shows how deeply divided society is and suggests possible political instability.
Will relations between Donald Tusk’s government and the new president-elect improve?
We asked the people of Warsaw.
“They are on opposite sides and don’t agree. But Nawrocki is a big unknown. Also, nobody knows anything,” said one passer-by.
Another Warsaw resident toned down the mood: “We need to cool down first. Is it even possible to arrange something? I hope, however, that wisdom will win out and somehow these relations will settle down. And this nation will not be as divided as it is at the moment.”
“There is no agreement between the government and the president. There are two different worlds: the Polish world and the German world,” another man commented.
And his companion referred to Karol Nawrocki’s passion for sport: “He has religious values and is a boxer. And a boxer will box.”
“It looks as if the new president Nawrocki was elected almost on demand, so that the coalition can complain for the next five years about how they can’t get anything done because the president closes the door in front of their noses,” commented, in turn, a Pole who has lived in the UK for twenty years.
“I’m not Polish, but I think the situation is very bad and it’s going to be super hard,” a young Belarusian citizen who lives permanently in Poland told Euronews.
Planned government reshuffle
Two days after the first round of the presidential election, Donald Tusk announced the renegotiation of the coalition agreement and the reconstruction of the government, which was to take place after the election of the president.
“The atmosphere has to cool down after the elections. I am not saying it will be next year, but in June I will already be back calmly from talks with my coalition partners. Not to take anything away from them, but to make this government smaller – although in good proportions for everyone – and much more efficient,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said during an interview with TVP.
In a televised speech later on Monday, he announced his intention to hold a confidence vote in parliament without giving any more details.