A right-wing history teacher and supporter of the extreme right Law and Justice Party, Karol Nawrocki, won the election on Sunday to become the new president of Poland. His election is the latest reflection of a struggle in Europe between pro- and anti-Trump forces.
Nawrocki won with the slimmest possible margin of only 50.89 percent to the 49.11 percent garnered by his opponent, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski.
The race reflected the drive by European nationalist leaders who, like Nawrocki, are openly backed by Trump. Nawrocki also received congratulatory messages from Viktor Orban, the autocratic leader of Hungary, and Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.
The new Polish president is expected to follow Trump’s lead on a variety of issues, including deregulation of big business, ending environmental protection legislation, attacks on immigrant rights, attacks on LGBTQ rights, and attacks on unions.
He succeeds Andrej Duda, another right-winger, as president.
A problem in the Polish election was that Nawrocki’s opponent, Trzaskowski, was nowhere nearly as progressive as the media, including the New York Times, has said. He, like his right-wing opponent, supported polices that ended up hurting the majority of Polish workers.
The “liberal” Trzaskowski was a strong supporter of NATO’s military buildup, much of which takes place on the eastern border of Poland. Whether paying for tax cuts for the rich advocated by Nawrocki or paying for the NATO buildup advocated by his “liberal” opponent, the Polish workers end up with the short end of the stick.
That helps explain the victory of the right-wing candidate. An article in the Times incorrectly said Trzaskowski lost because the youth did not turn out. They, according to the Times, are mostly extreme left or even more right-wing than Nawrocki. Never considered as an explanation by the Times is that neither of the two major Polish parties seriously addresses the concerns of youth for decent living wages, better jobs, good education, and other issues related to quality of life.
Contrary to the job description in the New York Times, the president is quite powerful in the Polish political system. Even though the prime minister drafts legislation and the parliament approves it, the president can veto anything the parliament approves. The president also exercises significant control over foreign policy.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, herself a leading supporter of the dangerous NATO military buildup on Poland’s eastern border and elsewhere, said she was looking forward to working with Nawrocki “to ensure the security and prosperity of our common home,” of Europe.
Bad enough, cutting taxes for the rich
It’s bad enough that Nawrocki supports tax cuts for the rich, paid for by workers. On top of that, Polish workers have to deal with problems the EU is causing them. Support for military buildups backed by both major parties in Poland also means more cuts in social services in order to pay for weapons aimed at Russia. Many of those are to be placed on Poland’s eastern border.
The claims that the EU and Polish nationalists make that Europe needs to protect itself from Russia fly in the face of reality. Europe’s military is two to three times the size of the Russian military, and even if Russia wanted to attack NATO, it would take years for it to rebuild its military after the war in Ukraine.
In any case, the new president is expected, like his predecessor Duda, to continue backing the war in Ukraine.
Nawrocki, like all the right-wing European politicians, gives verbal support to “national sovereignty,” but when it comes to the military buildup by NATO, he is prepared to cede much of that independence to allow his country to be used as a staging and preparatory ground for war.
Both the right-wing nationalists in Europe and the so-called “centrist” leadership of the EU play into the hands of the Trump administration, which wants Europe to take the lead in building up its military strength so Trump and the U.S. warhawks can focus their fire on China and the Pacific.
Election victories by right-wing nationalists are not happening all over Europe. Just two weeks ago, voters in Romania rejected a nationalist, George Simion, who self-described as a “MAGA candidate.”
That positive result in Romania, along with the narrow victory of the nationalist candidate in Poland, showed that Orban of Hungary was jumping ahead of things when he described the Polish election results as the beginning of “a new era of national patriots around the world.”
It is, however, indicative of the fact that there is a real struggle underway between the supporters of autocracy and fascism and the supporters of democracy.
What the Polish election results also tell us is that the forces committed to democracy must ramp up their struggle. They will not be able to win if they accept the EU and NATO position that dangerous military buildups are a needed part of the fight to save democracy.
The struggle for democracy and the struggle for peace cannot be separated from one another.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.
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