Conservative Karol Nawrocki elected Poland's new president | BBC News

The war in Ukraine is being watched

closely by neighboring Poland, which has

just held its pivotal presidential

election with all votes now counted. The

right-wing historian Carol Navrosky is

Poland's new president. The result is a

major setback for the prime minister,

Donald Tusk's pro-EU government. The

state electoral commission said that Mr.

Navrosky won 50.89% 89% ahead of

Warsaw's Liberal Mayor Rafael Chzkovski

on

49.11%. For more on this, let's speak to

our correspondent who's in Warsaw for

us, Adam Eastston. Hello there to you,

Adam. Um, so this is a clear win then.

There are no question marks about how

tight it is or anything like that.

It's an official result. The National

Electoral Commission has just in the

last few minutes confirmed that

percentage that lead by 1.7 percentage

uh victory percentage points victory for

uh Poland's right-wing uh historian

Carol Navrosky. He will become Poland's

new president. as you say, that's

important because although the office is

largely ceremonial, he does have um a

veto on legislation and during the 18

months that uh the pro-EU uh prime

minister Donald Tusk has been in power,

he has been stymied by the current

incumbent conservative president an Duda

who's blocked him in delivering many of

his key campaign promises such as

liberalizing the country's very strict

abortion law, depoliticizing the

judiciary. So, Mr. Navrosky will

continue to block Mr. Tusk's pro-EU

program and uh his victory will also

re-energize his supporters, Poland's

main opposition, Lauren Justice,

Conservative opposition who will now see

that they are on their way to a return

to power after 18 months when they were

when they were voted out and uh

parliamentary elections are not until

2027, but uh they will certainly see

that they are now in the ascendancy and

Poland will be turning toward more to

more conservative rightwing

uh politics rather than uh cementing its

place in the European mainstream with

strong relations with Germany and and uh

and France. Who is what more can you

tell us about Mr. Natsky? He's 42 years

old. We said he's an historian. What

else can you add for us, Adam?

He's an historian because he's the head

of the state um national uh commission

remembrance commission which

investigates um communist era and also

World War II era crimes. He um is uh a

traditional conservative Roman Catholic.

He's got um he believes in strong

sovereign Poland within the EU. Um he

supports continued assistance to

Ukraine, but unlike Mr. Chazkovski, he

doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO or the

EU anytime soon because he thinks that's

too dangerous in the current climate of

Russia's continued aggression. Um and uh

he's also a big fan of President Trump.

Um he went flew during the campaign for

basically a thumbs up photograph in the

Oval Office with Donald Trump. didn't do

much more in terms of a meeting because

um he thought that would improve his

chances and um so those sort of issues,

anti-woke issues, freedom of speech

issues. Adam uh in fact Donald Trump's

um Adam, can I just jump in really

quickly? He campaigned under the slogan

Poland first, polls first. How is that

likely to be regarded with the EU? What

sort of relationship could he have?

he'll be much more pushy in terms of uh

his relationship with Brussels in terms

of um insisting on Poland uh uh uh

following it. It's what it what he

believes it's in his national interests.

He doesn't want to seed any uh

additional powers to Brussels. Um he'll

be very tough on migration, but there

again, the Prime Minister Donald Tusk

has been very tough on migration and

that's been that's becoming the European

mainstream anyway. But uh certainly a

more combative relationship with

Brussels is uh is to be expected under

President Navaroski.