Polish centrist's narrow presidential lead sees pro-EU path hanging in the balance

Centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and nationalist Karol Nawrocki will compete in a second round of the presidential election in Poland on June 1, nearly complete voting results from the electoral commission showed early on Monday.

The commission published data from 99.9 per cent of voting districts by provinces at  at 2:27 a.m. on Monday without giving an overall result. The data shows Trzaskowski and Nawrocki well ahead of other candidates in 15 of 16 provinces.

A late exit poll by Ipsos from Sunday's first round showed Trzaskowski leading with 31.2 per cent of the vote, ahead of Nawrocki at 29.7 per cent.

If confirmed, the result would mean that Trzaskowski and Nawrocki will go head to head in a run-off vote to determine whether Poland sticks to the pro-European track set by Prime Minister Donald Tusk or moves closer to a more nationalist agenda.

Both candidates started preparing for the second round early on Monday, with Trzaskowski meeting voters in Warsaw and Nawrocki in Gdansk.

"We need to talk to everyone, arguments are the most important. I am glad that many young people went to vote, but the big challenge is to convince them to vote for me," Trzaskowski told reporters.

Far-right candidates Slawomir Mentzen and Grzegorz Braun together accounted for more than 21 per cent of the vote, a historically high percentage, winning widespread support from young voters. It is not clear, however, who their votes will go to in the second round.

Braun, who in 2023 used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles in the country's parliament, an incident that caused international outrage, won 6.3 per cent of the vote according to the late poll.

Mentzen stopped short of immediately endorsing Nawrocki.

"Voters ... are not sacks of potatoes, they are not thrown from one place to another," he said. "Each of our voters is a conscious, intelligent person and will make their own decision."

Stanley Bill, professor of Polish Studies at the University of Cambridge, said the combined strong showing of nationalist and far-right parties meant the results were "a disappointment for the Trzaskowski camp and put wind in the sails of Nawrocki."

"I would add to this that the results are a significant blow to Donald Tusk's ruling coalition," Bill added.

Nawrocki, backed by the nationalist Law and Justice party, said he will fight for the votes the people on both sides of the political landscape.

"My social agenda and the fact that I will be the guardian of the social achievements of the Law and Justice government and the Solidarity [trade union] make it an offer also for left-wing, socially sensitive circles," he said.

The vote in Poland took place on the same day as a presidential run-off vote in Romania, in which centrist Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan defeated euroskeptic hard-right lawmaker George Simion.

In Poland, the president has the power to veto laws. A Trzaskowski victory in the second round would enable Tusk's government to implement an agenda that includes rolling back judicial reforms introduced by the Law and Justice Party that critics say undermined the independence of the courts.

However, if Nawrocki wins, the impasse that has existed since Tusk became prime minister in 2023 would be set to continue. Until now, the current President Andrzej Duda has stymied Tusk's efforts.

Role in Europe at stake

Trzaskowski has pledged to cement Poland's role as a major player at the heart of European policymaking and work with the government to roll back the right-wing Law and Justice Party's judicial changes.

Nawrocki's campaign was rocked by allegations, which he denies, that he deceived an elderly man into selling him a flat in return for a promise of care he did not provide. But Trump showed support by meeting Nawrocki in the White House.

Nawrocki casts the election as a chance to stop Tusk achieving unchecked power and push back against liberal values represented by Trzaskowski, who as Warsaw mayor was a patron of LGBT marches and took down Christian crosses from public buildings.

Unlike some other euroskeptics in central Europe, Nawrocki supports military aid to help Ukraine fend off Russia. However, he has tapped into anti-Ukrainian sentiment among some Poles weary of an influx of refugees from their neighbour.

He has said Polish citizens should get priority in public services and criticized Kyiv's attitude to exhumations of the remains of Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War.