Poland's conservative opposition party taps historian as candidate for 2025 presidential run

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's conservative Law and Justice party, which is trying to regain its momentum after losing power last year, on Sunday chose historian Karol Nawrocki as its candidate for president ahead of an election next year.

The decision caps a weekend in which the country's two largest parties announced their candidates in next May's election that will decide the successor to incumbent President Andrzej Duda, whose second and final term ends in August 2025.

Nawrocki, 41, has since 2021 led the Institute of National Remembrance, a state body that houses archives and researches the crimes of World War II and the communist era. He previously served as the director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, the city where he was born.

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The announcement was made at a party convention in the southern Polish city of Krakow. It came a day after the main governing party, Civic Coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, announced that it was fielding progressive Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski as its candidate.

Even though other parties will have candidates, the race is expected to be mostly dominated by Nawrocki and Trzaskowski.

Law and Justice, in power for eight years from 2015-23, is expected to face headwinds at the polls due to a loss of state funding. The state electoral authority determined earlier this year that the party violated campaign funding rules in the 2023 parliamentary vote, and imposed a penalty worth millions of dollars that would undercut the party’s resources.

The constitutional calendar dictates that the first round of the presidential election be held on a Sunday in May 2025, though the date has not been set yet. If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote in the first round, a runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held two weeks later.

Other candidates who have announced plans to run include the parliament speaker, Szymon Hołownia, leader of the Poland 2050 party, while the far-right Confederation party has said that its candidate will be Sławomir Mentzen.