The two biggest Polish political parties, liberal Civic Platform (PO) and conservative Law and Justice (PiS) named their candidates for the next year’s presidential election. Rafał Trzaskowski won the preelections within the PO and Karol Nawrocki was chosen in an internal procedure within a Civic Committee organised by PiS. 

Karol Nawrocki (41) is the head of the Polish National Remembrance Institute. He has a PhD in history sciences and is known for his passion for professional boxing. He was the first Polish historian to specialise in the problems of organised crime in communist Poland.

Nawrocki served as Head of the IPN Branch Office of Public Education in Gdansk from 2013 to 2017, chairman of the Siedlce District Council in Gdansk from 2011 to 2017, director of the World War II Museum in Gdansk from 2017 to 2021, deputy president of the Institute of National Remembrance from 2021, and is now the President of the Institute of National Remembrance since 2021.

According to the statement of the Civic Committee (a political body of PiS that nominated Nawrocki for the candidacy) Karol Nawrocki will be the non-partisan and open, civic candidate that runs with the support of PiS.

Rafał Trzaskowski competed to become the candidate with Radosław Sikorski to whom he won the election by 74% to 26% of votes. 

Trzaskowski (52) is now serving as the mayor of Warsaw. He already took part in the presidential election in 2020 in which he lost with the current Polish president Andrzej Duda by a small margin (51,03% for Duda and 48,97% for Trzaskowski).

Trzaskowski holds a PhD in international affairs and specialises in modern European politics. He is also an experienced politician. 

Until now he served as a Member of the European Parliament (2009-2013), Minister of Administration and Digitization (2013-2014), Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2014-2015), Member of the Sejm (2015-2018), Mayor of the Capital City of Warsaw (since 2018), Vice-Chairman of the Civic Platform (since 2020). 

The final declaration of the PiS Civic Committee will now result in a new wave of political and social research to asses the chances of both main candidates for the Polish presidency. 

The British Poles will keep you posted on the main themes of the presidential campaign. 

Source: PAP, X

Photo: IPN, X @trzaskowski_

Tomasz Modrzejewski