The ‘Illiberal Detox’: Polish Voters Go to the Polls With Center-Left Ahead
NEED TO KNOW
The ‘Illiberal Detox’: Polish Voters Go to the Polls With Center-Left Ahead
POLAND
Polish presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, standard bearer of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, likely had a 50-50 chance of becoming the next head of state in his central European country on May 18 before a scandal related to an apartment broke.
Nawrocki claimed to be a man of the people, one who owned a single apartment. He failed to mention that he owned a second one through circumstances that looked shady at best, however. He later donated the property to charity. But that and other bizarre episodes – in a televised video hawking a book, he interviewed himself in disguise – are why he might lose a major ideological battle for Poland’s future.
Nawrocki is trailing Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski in the polls in the run-up to the presidential elections, Politico reported. Trzaskowski is part of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s progressive Civic Platform party, which unseated the PiS government in 2023 after years of ruling the country under tight control. PiS notoriously took control of public broadcasters, installed compliant judges, and hollowed out any other power centers in the civil service, earning rebukes from the European Union.
Now, to advance his euro-centric, center-left agenda, Tusk wants a Polish president who is friendlier than incumbent President Andrzej Duda, a PiS stalwart, explained the Fondation Robert Schuman. Reflecting his conservative instincts, Duda, for instance, has vetoed laws giving women free access to the morning-after pill and recognized Silesian as a minority language, among other progressive policies.
“Tusk’s victory 18 months ago was seen as a model for how to defeat the kind of right-wing conservative, anti-establishment parties that have gained so much ground in recent European elections,” University of Sussex politics professor Aleks Szczerbiak told the British think tank, Chatham House. “This election will show to what extent the Polish electorate has rejected that kind of politics.”
The Civic Platform isn’t taking any changes, though. Sensing the direction of the wind, the Trzaskowski campaign has tacked to the right to gain votes, advocating for a tougher stance on migrants, including rejecting European quotas and imposing more stringent rules for Ukrainian refugees. He says he would also cut the stipends for Ukrainians, compelling them to find work rather than live on social benefits, added Balkan Insight.
Nawrocki also appeared to be losing support to Sławomir Mentzen, a far-right candidate who is garnering around 20 percent of the vote, especially among young men. In the past, he has expressed his opposition to “Jews, homosexuals, abortion, and taxes,” noted Euractiv.
The ideological battles aren’t going away soon. But they might be put on hold temporarily, say observers.
The European Consortium for Political Research detailed how, since 2015, there has been a shift in Poland toward democracy that culminated in the 2023 presidential election, which ejected Poland’s illiberal government. “Yet the 2025 presidential election may prove equally critical,” it added, saying that “If the EU’s future will be decided in central Europe, it is critical that Poland’s ‘illiberal detox’ succeeds.”
As a result, the election may decide the future of the populist-nationalist PiS and also be a bellwether for other European countries where hard-right parties have recently gained increasing power and prominence, the Economist wrote.
“Either PiS will be “on a highway to return to power,” Andrzej Bobinski of Polityka Insight, a think tank in Warsaw, told the British magazine. “Or it will be the end of PiS as we know it.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Stood Up: Russia’s Putin Skips Talks With Ukraine After Proposing Them
UKRAINE
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine arrived in Turkey Thursday for the first direct peace negotiations in more than three years, though expectations for a breakthrough were dashed after Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to attend the talks that he himself had suggested, Radio Free Europe reported.
Thursday’s talks took place at Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace, with low-level negotiators from both sides attending the high-stakes negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine war.
They come less than a week after Putin offered direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “without preconditions.” His proposal followed an ultimatum by Kyiv’s allies in Europe to Moscow to either accept a ceasefire offer or risk additional sanctions.
Russian state media confirmed that the delegation was led by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, accompanied by Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin and military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov, among others.
However, Kremlin officials said Putin wouldn’t attend the talks because there were “no preparations” for them held between the Russian leader and US President Donald Trump – who initially suggested he would attend the talks if Putin showed up, according to NBC News.
Putin’s absence has prompted questions among leaders and diplomats about whether Moscow is serious about reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy – who arrived in Ankara but did not attend the talks – called the Russian delegation “decorative” and questioned whether it had the authority to seriously negotiate. He reiterated that he would only engage in face-to-face talks with Putin himself.
Other Ukrainian officials warned that Putin’s move signals that Russia “does not want peace,” while Lithuania’s ambassador to Sweden, Linas Linkevičius, predicted the talks would be used by Moscow to stall and prepare for further military campaigns.
Russian analyst Natalia Shavshukova told RFE that Putin’s true aim is a direct meeting with Trump, not peace with Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the European Commission circulated a draft regulation this week to reinstate pre-war import quotas on key Ukrainian agricultural exports as the bloc’s wartime waivers are set to expire next month, Politico added.
Following Russia’s 2022 invasion, the European Union waived duties and quotas on Ukrainian farm goods under special rules set to expire on June 5.
The bloc now plans to replace them with adjusted limits under Ukraine’s existing trade deal to avoid annual renewals.
But critics warned the move could harm Ukraine’s economy and send the wrong signal about the EU’s support for Ukraine as the war drags on.
Former President Morales Blocked from Bolivia’s Presidential Race
BOLIVIA
Bolivia’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that banned a president from serving more than two terms, regardless of whether they are consecutive or not, effectively prohibiting former President Evo Morales from seeking office for a fourth time in August, Reuters reported.
The nine members of the court voted unanimously after years of speculation surrounding the constitutionality of a third term, saying that banning Morales from running again does not violate his human rights, according to MercoPress.
Morales reacted to the court decision on social media by saying that “only the people” could convince him not to run again in the next election. He also argued that the Bolivian Constitution only forbids continuous re-election, not the number of terms, and said the court’s decision is a violation of the constitution by “de facto magistrates.”
The court said that, according to the law, the president and vice president are eligible to be re-elected only once in a continuous manner, and that the term “only once” also excludes the possibility of running for a third term.
A court allowed Morales to serve a third term because his first was served before changes to the constitution took effect. He ran for a fourth term in 2019 but fled Bolivia after the election results were disputed.
Current President Luis Arce, once Morales’s ally and mentee, announced earlier this week that he would withdraw from this year’s election, likely to avoid a humiliating defeat after a five-year term marked by turmoil and sinking polls, Al Jazeera noted.
Mauritania’s Former President Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison
MAURITANIA
Mauritania’s former President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on Wednesday saw his sentence tripled to 15 years and was fined $3 million after he appealed a corruption conviction, in what analysts say is one of the few cases where an African leader has been held accountable for robbing the state, Africanews reported.
Aziz, a former military general who helped lead two coups before serving as president from 2009 to 2019, was found guilty and sentenced in 2023 for money laundering and self-enrichment. Investigators say he accumulated over $70 million in assets while in power, according to the Associated Press.
The court on Wednesday also cleared six senior officials who had served in Aziz’s administration but upheld a previous two-year prison sentence for his son-in-law on charges of influence peddling. According to the verdict, the “Errahma” (Mercy) Foundation, led by Aziz’s son, is ordered to be dissolved, and his assets will be seized by the government.
Aziz’s legal team called the charges politically motivated, accusing current President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani of a power play.
Aziz and Ghazouani were allies until Ghazouani became president in 2019 in what was the country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence from France in 1960. Tensions escalated when Aziz tried to take over a major political party after leaving office. In 2020, a parliamentary commission initiated a corruption investigation targeting Aziz and other officials.
DISCOVERIES
The Bard’s Very Present Wife
A fragment of a 17th-century letter has sparked fresh debate over one of literary history’s most elusive romances: The marriage of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway.
Scholars have long believed the English couple lived largely apart, with Shakespeare in London and Anne left behind in Stratford.
But new research has found evidence that the famous poet and playwright was not an absent husband and even shared a London address with his wife of 34 years.
The evidence comes from a letter addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire,” first found in 1978 inside the binding of a 1608 book at Hereford Cathedral Library.
In his analysis, Matthew Steggle, a professor of early modern English literature at the University of Bristol in the UK, told the Washington Post that the letter dates from between 1590 and 1620, and concerns an unpaid debt related to a fatherless apprentice named John Butts.
“Your husband owes us some money, and if he doesn’t pay, you should,” the letter warned Anne.
The correspondence also mentions that she and her famous husband “dwelt in trinitie lane” – or Little Trinity Lane, a street that still exists in London across the river Thames from Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, where his plays are still performed, almost five centuries later.
For centuries, Anne has been cast as the renowned bard’s estranged wife, who was believed to be uncultured and illiterate. In Shakespeare’s will, she was given “second-best bed,” which some historians suggest was not a slight against her because beds were luxury items at the time.
While not all scholars are convinced, many are intrigued, with some telling the Post that the “implications are huge.”
Steggle agreed that it “is not a complete slam dunk,” but the evidence is not something easily dismissed.
He told the BBC that the document also offers a tantalizing glimpse into Shakespeare’s domestic life and his endeavors in London.
“It at least doubles the number of letters known to be addressed to or sent from Shakespeare and his family,” he added. “Currently, there’s only one known. It also shows a side of Shakespeare’s London life that’s not been known before, giving him … a whole new sphere of activity for him.”