Tuesday, June 3

Right wing historian and former athlete Karol Nawrocki has won the Polish presidential election after a marginal win over the opposing left wing party.

The 2025 Polish presidential election was set to be one for the ages after initial polls showed left-wing candidate Rafal Trzaskowski, Warsaw's mayor, leading with 50.3% of the vote, compared to Nawrocki's 49.7%.

After these beginning polls, Trzackowski was quick to estsblish that he had won-- but maybe too quick. The next morning, final polls showed Nawrocki with a winning vote percentage of 50.9%, leading Trzackowski's 49.1%.

Nawrocki, a historian and former athlete, has been the head of the Institute of National Remembrance since 2021, and he also served as the director of the Museum of the Second World War in the northern port city of Gdańsk from 2017 to 2021. He is primarily backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, a right-wing party looking to shift away from Poland's dependence on the European Union while maintaining their ties with the organization.

However, his views are also highly anti-communist and anti-Russia, and he is likely to work on solidifying Poland's stature as an independent, self-sufficient country in the coming years. He also supports Ukraine, but is against the prospect of them joining the EU during their war with Russia.

Meanwhile, Trzackowski, his opponent, planned to focus more on solidifying ties with the European Union and implementing their ideas on topics such as climate and immigration, which Nawrocki strongly opposes.

Nevertheless, the current prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, has the opposite view from Nawrocki on many of these points, and he has confirmed that he will be asking for a vote of confidence in the near future to ensure that he maintains his position. All he needs is a simple majority to keep his place as prime minister, which he is expected to do, but Nawrocki's win has given the PiS hope that they can defeat Tusk in the 2027 elections for prime minister.

Fact of the Day (BBC): Some animals display autistic-like traits. Autistic traits in animals include a tendency toward repetitive behaviour and atypical social habits.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): I like to say, ‘Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.’ (Howard S. Marks)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Herculean (adj, her-kyuh-LEE-un) - Something described as Herculean (often uncapitalized as herculean) is characterized by extraordinary power, extent, intensity, or difficulty.

In a Sentence: Although starting a garden sounded fun in theory, the constant weeding and pest control turned it into a herculean task.