Poland & Portugal

There are three big elections in Europe on Sunday. One is the second round of the Romanian presidential election, which we looked at the other day. Let’s quickly review the other two.

Poland votes in the first round of its presidential election. A year and a half ago its authoritarian right-wing government was defeated at the polls and replaced by a broad coalition, with the centre-right’s Donald Tusk as prime minister. But the presidency was held by Andrzej Duda from the old regime, who had been elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2020 and retained some capacity to frustrate the new government.

Term limits prevent Duda from running again, so his party, Law & Justice, has nominated conservative historian Karol Nawrocki. He is facing another twelve candidates, of whom the main ones are the representatives of the three sections of the coalition government – Rafał Trzaskowski (centre-right), Szymon Hołownia (centre) and Magdalena Biejat (centre-left) – and the far right’s Sławomir Mentzen.

There’s no prospect of anyone winning a first round majority, so the election will go to a runoff two weeks later, most probably between Trzaskowski and Nawrocki. They have led consistently in the opinion polls, with Trzaskowski, who is mayor of Warsaw, a few points clear; there was a period about two months ago when Mentzen seemed to be challenging for second place, but his numbers have fallen back.

Second-round polling, never an exact science, shows Trzaskowski well in the lead, with a margin of about ten points. Unless something big happens in the next fortnight, it looks as the government will get a more sympathetic president, which will be a significant boost for Tusk and for the pro-European forces in the region.

We looked at Portugal back in March when the early election was called. Centre-right prime minister Luís Montenegro had depended on the tolerance of the opposition Socialists for his survival in parliament, and when he was caught up in a conflict-of-interest scandal they turfed him out on a vote of confidence.

At the last election, in March last year, Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance led the Socialists by less than a percentage point, 28.8% to 28.0%, with the far-right Chega in third place on 18.1%. Another five parties won seats, but mathematically they were unable to affect the situation in parliament. It was a straight choice between co-operation with the far right and some sort of understanding between the major parties, and Montenegro chose the latter.

Over the last month or two the polls have shifted in the prime minister’s favor, perhaps because voters blame the Socialists for forcing an early election (the second in succession). He now leads by about seven points, roughly 33% to 26%, with Chega another eight or ten points behind and the rest (Liberals, Greens and far left) back in single digits.

Voting is D’Hondt proportional in each of 22 multi-member constituencies, so winning a majority with a vote in the high 30s is not impossible, but it still looks very unlikely. Montenegro’s best hope is probably that the Liberals, who generally lean to the right, will improve on their 4.9% and eight seats from last time, putting him close enough to a majority to improve his bargaining position against the Socialists and anyone else who might help.