Poland’s new president Karol Nawrocki has vowed to defend his country’s political independence from the EU, boost its role in Nato and restore a “normal Poland”.
Nawrocki’s inauguration on Wednesday brings Poland into uncharted waters, intensifying decades-old political culture wars and creating a new, powerful opponent for prime minister Donald Tusk.
His preferred candidate lost out narrowly in June’s presidential election to Nawrocki, a 42-year-old amateur boxer, conservative historian and political newcomer.
Nawrocki’s “Poland First” campaign, backed by the opposition national conservative Law and Justice (PiS), chime with voters - many of whom gathered with flags outside the Sejm parliament on Wednesday.
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“I will be the voice of those who want a sovereign Poland that is in the European Union ... but [which] is and will remain Poland,” said Nawrocki, promising to block any attempts by Brussels to “take away Poland’s powers”.
He promised a new constitution by 2030 and signalled a new round in the standoff over Poland’s judiciary by challenging Tusk administration efforts to roll back politicised appointments from the previous PiS administration.
Echoing a PiS narrative, Nawrocki framed these rollback efforts as an attempt to “undermine Poland’s legal order” and hit out at the country’s independent judiciary.
“Judges are not gods — they are here to serve the country and its citizens,” he added.
As new titular head of the armed forces, Nawrocki pushed for a greater Nato presence in Poland and reaffirmed his country’s security commitments, in particular to the US.
[ Polish presidential election: Pro-Trump candidate Karol Nawrocki wins voteOpens in new window ]
US president Donald Trump, who hosted Nawrocki during the campaign, sent the new president an inaugural gift of an American eagle statue.
Wednesday’s inauguration was a political triumph for opposition PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose previous protegé occupied the presidential palace for the last decade.
Polish analysts are waiting to see how much of Nawrocki’s robust campaign rhetoric follows him into office.
On the campaign trail he presented himself as a conservative family man, defender of national identity, security and a bulwark against neo-liberal politics.
The PiS-backed candidate promised to use his veto on domestic policy to reject illegal migration, attempts to raise the retirement age and block Nato membership for Ukraine.
Those promises have cast a pall over the Tusk administration, a broad anti-PiS coalition with often competing political priorities that is riven with disagreement and enjoys just 48 per cent popular support. Given gloomy predictions for the months ahead, Tusk chose to accentuate the positive on Wednesday.
The 68-year-old saw “room for co-operation in key fields such as security”, a nod to his government’s harder line on security and migration affairs in recent months.
Meanwhile, foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressed optimism that having a prime minister close to the EU and a president close to Donald Trump will allow Poland to “play on two pianos at once”.
While there is a consensus that Nawrocki poses a political challenge for Tusk, some see him as closer than others in PiS to extreme right-wing parties whose candidates polled well in the June election.
On the campaign trail, Nawrocki shrugged off revelations about his past as a football hooligan and signed a political pact presented by the far-right populist Confederation party.
Given all that, Tusk told journalists on Wednesday that the new president could soon declare his political independence and prove a handful for his PiS backer, 76-year-old PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
“Perhaps the only person more nervous and sad in the room was Jaroslaw Kaczynski,” said Tusk outside the Sejm parliamentary chamber. “I’m not surprised. There is a change of guard on the right and there is clearly a new leader”.
