In Poland, on May 18, the first round of the presidential election took place. Advancing to the second round are Rafał Trzaskowski, candidate from the liberal-centrist party Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), and independent candidate Karol Nawrocki, supported by the right-conservative party Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS). The gap in the number of votes is minimal: Trzaskowski received 31.5% of the vote, while Nawrocki received 29.5%. In third place was Sławomir Mentzen, representative of the far-right coalition of conservative parties Confederation of Freedom and Independence (Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość), who received 14.8% of the votes. His former colleague Grzegorz Braun, a candidate with openly anti-Semitic and anti-European views, garnered 6.3% of the votes.
The topic of the Polish elections was discussed on May 20, 2025, by Ekaterina Tikhomirova, host of the "Katyusha's Calculation" program on News.by channel. According to the results of the presidential campaign, it has become clear that far-right candidates have much greater support in Polish society than other political forces, she stated:
"The second round of the presidential elections in Poland is inevitable. As expected, representatives of Law and Justice and Civic Platform have emerged as leaders. In other words, the political landscape remains unchanged: since the 1990s, they have alternated at the helm of power without change. However, there is an unexpected surprise: if all so-called far-right candidates are united into a single force or one candidate, they will not only pose a serious challenge to the coalitions led by Donald Tusk of Civic Platform and Jarosław Kaczyński of Law and Justice, but by ratings alone, they could tear through them like a hot knife through butter.
Poland's Civic Platform and Law and Justice parties were established only in 2001. They became the country's dominant political forces starting with the 2005 parliamentary elections. In other words, they couldn't have alternated in power since the 1990s.
According to calculations by Ekaterina Tikhomirova, Poland's two-party system faced a threat in this election: allegedly, far-right candidates could have won. The WTF team double-checked the TV anchor's math. Sławomir Mentzen, who secured nearly 15% of the vote, and Grzegorz Braun, with just over 6%, together garnered 21%. This means that even individually, each candidate heading into the runoff received more votes individually than all far-right candidates combined.
