WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and a conservative historian, Karol Nawrocki, emerged as the front-runners in Poland’s presidential election Sunday, according to an exit poll, putting them on track to face off in a second round in two weeks.
A late exit poll by the Ipsos institute released three hours after polls closed showed Trzaskowski with an estimated 31.1 percent of the votes and Nawrocki with 29.1 percent. That suggested that the runoff on June 1 could be very tight. Official results are expected on Monday or Tuesday.
The good part is, that none of the two is a far right extremist.
Nawrocki is remotely controlled by the same person who has the remote to the President. Trzaskowski is controlled by the current government. So no matter who wins we should not expect any extreme turn.
The bad part is, that the third and the fourth place were far right extremists, who in previous elections would get, like, 5 percent total, now got 21 percent combined, which gets me worried for the next parliamentary elections.
The presence of far-right politics has really seen an uptick in recent years. It seems to have started in America but has spread to Europe and other countries like a plague. You have the AfD in Germany who claimed second place unseating a centre-left government, the entry of Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK party into the British parliament (even overtaking the traditional Conservative Party in recent polls), the fourth consecutive election in Portugal where the nationalist Chega party has gained seats, and Canada narrowly avoiding electing Pierre Poilievre the “Maple MAGA”.
Surprisingly enough, prior to Donald Trump blowing up the US-Canada alliance, Poilievre was predicted to win in a landslide in Canada with a 90%+ chance of his party getting a majority but somehow it really does seem like everyone who associates with Trump outside the US loses their election. The premiership really shipped right through Poilievre’s hands like a lump of dry beach sand. Lol
Nah, Orban and Erdogan did conservative, nationalistic autocracy before it was cool.