High stakes as Poland heads to round two of presidential election

Supporters of the Mayor of Warsaw and the Civic Coalition (KO) presidential candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, listen to his speech during the Great Patriotic March a week before the second round of the presidential elections on May 25, 2025, in Warsaw, Poland [Omar Marques/Getty Images]

Warsaw, Poland – The streets of Warsaw were awash with red-and-white flags last Sunday as two presidential hopefuls and their supporters marched through the capital for one last time before Poland takes to polls on Sunday, June 1, in the second round of voting for the country’s next president.

Rafał Trzaskowski from the centre-right Civic Platform of the governing Civic Coalition and Karol Nawrocki, an independent candidate supported by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ran Poland between 2015 and 2023, are the two remaining contenders in the election. In the first round of polls on May 18, Trzaskowski won 31.1 percent of the votes while Nawrocki came second with 29.5 percent.