Rafał Trzaskowski, from prime minister Donald Tusk’s centre-left coalition, had a wafer-thin lead over Karol Nawrocki from the opposition Conservatives (PiS), according to exit polls at the close of polling on June 1.
One exit poll gave Trzaskowski 50.3 per cent of the vote, against 49.7 percent for Nawrocki. The other indicated an even closer race, with Trzaskowski on 50.2 percent and Nawrocki on 49.8.
Both exit polls showing a narrow lead for Trzaskowski fell comfortably within the polls’ 1 per cent margin of error.
There was a record turnout for a presidential election in Poland: estimated of 73 percent.
“We have won, but boy was it close”, Trzaskowski told his supporters, speaking after the exit polls were announced.
However, an analysis of actual results from polling stations that had been surveyed in the exit polls showed that it was PiS’s Nawrocki who obtained 50,7 percent of the vote and Trzaskowski 49,3 percent.
The margin of error on such analysis has in the past been less than 0,5 percent of the vote.
This seemed to vindicate Nawrocki’s words to his own PiS supporters when he declared “as the night wears on it will become clear that we have won”.
It was important “Donald Tusk is not given total power and that the muckraking campaign launched by the government proves unsuccessful,” he added.
In the first round of the election on May 18, Trzaskowski received 31.4 per cent, narrowly ahead of Nawrocki with 29.5 per cent.
It marked a bad night for the ruling Tusk coalition, with candidates from parties supporting the government altogether polling just 41 per cent. Opposition candidates on the Right of the political spectrum received a much higher total, with 53 per cent of votes.
During a hectic fortnight between the election’s two rounds, both candidates worked to attract supporters of the candidates who were eliminated after the first round.
A prime target were the 15 percent of voters who backed third-place Sławomir Mentzen, from the right-wing Confederation party.
If the final result the morning of June 2 is quite as close as is predicted , the election’s ultimate outcome is likely to move on to the judiciary.
Any petition to declare the election null and void will need to be considered by the Supreme Court’s Supervisory Chamber.
Muddling the waters still further, the Tusk government has challenged that chamber’s legitimacy.
According to Tusk’s coalition, the Supervisory Chamber is composed of judges who were either appointed or promoted between 2015 and 2023–during the last PiS government.
