Poland’s Conservative (PiS) presidential election candidate Karol Nawrocki has pledged that he would oppose abortion and “stop the Ukrainisation of Poland” in response to demands from the defeated right-wing candidate and MEP Grzegorz Braun.
Ahead of the knife-edge second round of the ballot on June 1, Nawrocki has sought support from rival candidates’ voters in the run-off against Prime Minister Donald Tusk centre-left government’s candidate Rafał Trzaskowski.
The PiS hopeful has written to Braun stating he would “defend Poland against disgusting attacks” by liberalist historians and scholars, “protect life from conception” and seek to penalise the “glorification” of the assassinated Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera.
Braun’s first-round campaign, that saw him finish fourth with 6,3 per cent of the vote, had put forward a set of seven questions to the remaining two candidates to answer ahead of the second round.
On Ukraine, Braun asked whether the candidates would refuse to send Polish soldiers and military equipment to the embattled country, stop the “Ukrainisation of Poland”, condemn the glorification of Stepan Bandera and ensure the exhumation of Polish victims of the Second World War massacres by Ukrainians.
With regard to the European Union, he said he wanted to see the Migration Pact revoked, the “stopping [of] both legal and illegal immigration” and the rejection of the bloc’s Green Deal.
He also asked about the candidates’ positions on preventing abortion, making vaccinations compulsory, legalising euthanasia and taking action against those he said had abused their powers regarding lockdowns during the Covid pandemic.
Finally, Braun asked whether the two election contenders would pledge to bring about the exhumation of victims of the pogrom at Jedwabne, “reject Jewish property compensation claims” against Poland and “end Hanukkah celebrations in the Presidential Palace”.
Nawrocki replied that he would never send Polish troops to Ukraine; would criminalise “Banderism” and support the exhumation of Polish victims of wartime massacres by Ukrainian nationalists.
He also pledged to “take action to unilaterally terminate the Migration Pact and the Green Deal”, but on vaccinations, Nawrocki said although he was in favour of making them voluntary in epidemic situations, they needed to be compulsory to save lives.
He did not refer specifically to Braun’s questions regarding Jews but said that “all claims stemming from German war actions should be directed to Berlin, not to Warsaw” and that he would stop the tradition of lighting the Menorah during Hanukkah in the Presidential Palace.
In response, Braun expressed his “disappointment” that the PiS candidate had ignored the issues of transferring military equipment to Ukraine, stopping the “Ukrainisation of Poland” and all immigration and preventing “medical experiments, forced vaccinations, eugenic selection and euthanasia”.
“Our conclusion after analysing the content of Karol Nawrocki’s response and the lack of response from Rafał Trzaskowski: God, protect all of Poland!” wrote Braun’s party in a statement.
Both Nawrocki and Trzaskowski have already met with the leader of the Confederation party Sławomir Mentzen, who came third with 14.8 per cent of the vote, to discuss eight demands he had issued to them. Nawrocki accepted and signed off on the pledges but Trzaskowski refused to do so.
Mentzen has not thus far, though, said whether he would support Nawrocki in the run-off , despite the fact that many of his MPs and activists have sated that they would vote for the PiS candidate.
A survey published a few days ago by UCE Research for the liberal-leaning outlet Onet website found that 54 per cent of Braun voters from the first round planned to support Nawrocki in the second, while 12 per cent would back Trzaskowski, with the remainder either unsure or planning to abstain.
Other polls of Mentzen’s voters indicated that just over 60 percent planned to vote for Nawrocki while around 15 per cent aimed to support Trzaskowski, with the rest declaring they may not vote at all.
Braun has been facing allegations of attacking a Hanukkah celebration in parliament, anti-Semitic statements and unauthorised entry to a hospital maternity ward to challenge a doctor who had performed an abortion on a nine-month foetus.
He has also been involved in high-profile incidents including the tearing down of a Ukranian flag from a municipal building, burning a EU flag in Silesia and protesting against Israeli actions in Gaza at a session of the European Parliament.
in 2024, Braun was elected an MEP for the Confederation party, which he quit to stand in the Polish presidential election earlier this year. In the EP he sits as a non-affiliated member as none of the right wing groupings there would admit him, reportedly because of his allegedly anti-Semitic views.
He now leads the Confederation of the Polish Crown party, which he founded and which supports Poland’s withdrawal from the EU, capital punishment and a total ban on abortion.
