Poland’s failing opposition presidential candidate forced to drop out, but her replacement isn’t much better

By admin
2 Min Read

After Civic Platform’s (PO) presidential candidate Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska’s support in the polls dropped from around 30 percent in February to 2 to 4 percent in May, alarm bells began ringing in PO headquarters.

Now, on Friday morning, she has been forced to resign in what amounted to a massive fall from grace. With her out of the picture, the most likely candidate to replace her is the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski. 

As a candidate, Trzaskowski will face great difficulty running against current Polish President Andrzej Duda. Here are a few reasons why:

The mayor of Warsaw is a “big city” candidate, borderline pretentious and not only in his messages, but also his lifestyle. Big cities may impose trends, but they do not win national elections. Those are won by small towns and villages.

Trzaskowski has committed several mistakes and foul-ups during his stint as mayor, which will come back to bite him during the campaign. He is not a charismatic person, to put it lightly.

Warsaw’s mayor also does not have any large successes to point to, especially not indisputable ones that would be easy to convey and remember. For example, he did not build his own Warsaw Uprising Museum, as Lech Kaczyński did during his term as mayor of Warsaw.