On May 18, Poles will vote in the first round of the country’s presidential election – the result of which will not only determine whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk can deliver on his centrist agenda but may reflect the appetite for far-right politics across Europe.
Tusk’s Civic Platform party leads a coalition that came to power in 2023, defeating the far-right Law and Justice Party (PiS) after eight years in office. His victory was built on a vision of helping ‘Poland regain its position as a leader of the European Union’ and rebuilding its institutions, after what his supporters saw as a decade of nationalist purging.
