On August 6, Karol Nawrocki (shown above) will officially take office as Poland's next president. He is a conservative and staunch nationalist, and his election signals a resurgence of populism in the heart of Europe.
The 42-year-old historian who had no previous political experience built his campaign on patriotic themes, traditional Catholic values, and a vow to defend Poland's sovereignty against the European Union and larger European nations like Germany.
Bob Maginnis is author of Preparing for World War III.
"It is good news. It's not so good news for the pro-EU Prime Minister (Donald) Tusk reform agenda. (Nawrocki) is aligned with the conservative Law and Justice Party, which means he's a nationalist and he's going to, like Trump, reject a lot of these liberal initiatives and social issues such as abortion rights and LGBTQ stuff. He’s going to align with Trump in that regard because he now has a majority in their legislature."
"Now the last two years in Poland, like Joe Biden’s four years as president after Mr. Trump’s first term in the United States, seem like little more than a liberal intermezzo in which some institutions were restored and some democratic norms reasserted. But voters’ deep dissatisfaction and polarization had not simply disappeared; what looked like a restoration was just a narrow opening — and one that may be closing now," lamented guest opinion writers Jaroslaw Kuisz and Karolina Wigura in The New York Times.
Maginnis says Nawrocki's election could signal a stronger relationship between Poland (military leaders shown in Ukraine above right) and the Trump administration.
"He does support NATO and he has an emphasis on national defense, which for the most part aligns with Trump and the US. It's to be determined whether or not he's going to push his hard for Ukraine, but I suspect he will because of a former Warsaw Pact country like Poland, the idea of a return of Moscow to downtown Warsaw is not something that's going to be welcome. So the issues seem to be pretty well lined up, and he seems to be very much of Trump sort of guy."
Poland and the U.S. are close allies, and there are 10,000 U.S. troops stationed in Poland.
Trump welcomed Nawrocki to the White House a month ago and his administration made clear in other ways that hw was its preferred candidate.
