Karol Nawrocki

• 1. The Man Called Batyr

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  In 2018, Karol Nawrocki went on Polish television in a hat, with his face blurred by the broadcast, as a man called Tadeusz Batyr. Batyr was a pen name Nawrocki had used for a book about a gangster in 1980s Communist Poland. On screen, the masked guest said Nawrocki had "inspired me" and "was the first person to examine organised crime in communist Poland". On social media, Nawrocki wrote that "Tadeusz Batyr contacted me for some guidance". He added that Batyr "thanked me for my help with an interesting book, which I recommend". The historian from Gdańsk behind that mask later became the president of Poland. How does a scholar of communist-era resistance and crime reach that office? What did he do with the state institutions that guard the country's memory of its past? And why did his campaign stir so many arguments about his own youth?

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• 2. Gdańsk Roots

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  Ryszard Nawrocki, a turner and member of Solidarity, lived from 1949 to 2008. His son Karol was born in Gdańsk on the 3rd of March 1983. Karol's mother, Elżbieta, was a bookbinder. His younger sister, Nina, is a pastry cook who works in a restaurant in Kraków. He completed primary school and the 4th High School in Gdańsk, then passed his matura exams in 2002. In 2003 he graduated from the Post-Secondary School of Business and Administration in the same city, with the title of Personnel Management Specialist.

  Football and boxing took up much of his youth, and he spent long hours working out at the gym. Years later, the history of sports became one of the subjects he studied as a scholar.

  In 2010 he married Marta, who was born in 1986. She studied law and administration at the University of Gdańsk and works for the National Revenue Administration. There she specialises in controlling the oil industry and combating illegal trade. The couple have a son, Antoni, and a daughter, Katarzyna. Nawrocki also adopted Daniel, born in 2003, who is Marta's son from a previous relationship.

  His academic path ran alongside all of this. The Faculty of History at the University of Gdańsk took him in 2003, and he finished a master's degree there in 2008. A doctorate in the humanities followed in 2013, built on a dissertation titled Social Resistance to Communist Rule in the Elbląg Voivodeship, 1976-1989. In 2023 he added a postgraduate International MBA in Strategy, Programme and Project Management at the Gdańsk University of Technology.

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• 3. Guardian Of Memory

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  In 2009, Nawrocki joined the Institute of National Remembrance, known by its initials IPN, and worked there until 2017. From 2013 to 2017 he headed its Branch Public Education Office in Gdańsk. Between 2011 and 2017 he also chaired the Siedlce District Council in Gdańsk.

  In 2017, Nawrocki was appointed director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, a job he kept until 2021. He then went back to the IPN, becoming its deputy president in June 2021. In July 2021 the Sejm elected him and the Senate of Poland approved him as head of the institute. He stayed in that office until 2025.

  Nawrocki wrote or co-wrote several books and many scholarly and popular papers. They deal with anti-communist opposition and with organised crime in the Polish People's Republic. Through these roles he gained a reputation for turning Poland's historical institutions toward a patriotic, anti-communist telling of the past.

  In February 2024, the Russian Federation listed him among people wanted on criminal charges. The accusation concerned the removal of monuments to the Red Army that had been erected in the Polish People's Republic between 1944 and 1989.

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• 4. Road To The Runoff

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  At 13.15 on the 22nd of November 2024, Nawrocki learned in a meeting that Law and Justice had chosen him as its presidential candidate. Party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński was in the room. So was Nawrocki's rival for the nomination, Tobiasz Bocheński.

  The choice had been wide open for months. Names floated in the press included Mariusz Błaszczak, Mateusz Morawiecki, Przemysław Czarnek and Dominik Tarczyński. Witold Bańka, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, was also considered Kaczyński's favourite, but he refused to run.

  The party is centralised, so the decision rested mostly with Kaczyński, who weighed social research and the balance of factions. In an August interview on Radio Maryja, he said the candidate must be a man who was "young, tall, imposing, handsome" and "with a family". A United Surveys poll in September 2024 gave Nawrocki only 7% support among Law and Justice voters. Błaszczak led with 29%, Morawiecki had 21% and Czarnek 11%. Talk of a primary election never produced an announcement.

  By November 2024, speculation had narrowed mostly to Bocheński, Czarnek and Nawrocki. Newsweek Polska reported that party activists including Adam Bielan, Joachim Brudziński and Sławomir Cenckiewicz backed Nawrocki. So did Morawiecki, although he had first wanted the nomination himself.

  On the 24th of November 2024, Andrzej Nowak introduced Nawrocki at a civic congress as an independent candidate supported by the party. His campaign platform was described as "patriotic, pro-Christian, pro-NATO, pro-Western, and pro-Donald Trump". Outgoing president Andrzej Duda had not been consulted, and relations between the two grew strained. Duda still endorsed Nawrocki at his election convention in Łódź on the 26th of April.

  Nawrocki met Donald Trump in the Oval Office on the 1st of May 2025. On the 18th of May he finished second in the first round with 29.54% of the vote. That sent him into a runoff on the 1st of June against Rafał Trzaskowski of Civic Platform.

  On the 22nd of May, Nawrocki met Sławomir Mentzen, who had placed third. They reportedly discussed concessions that could win Mentzen's endorsement. Mentzen presented eight points for a candidate to sign, and Nawrocki signed them. Four former candidates also endorsed him for the runoff: Marek Jakubiak, Marek Woch, Grzegorz Braun and Artur Bartoszewicz.

  On the 1st of June 2025, Nawrocki won the runoff with 50.9% against 49.1% for Trzaskowski. The gap was only 1.8 percentage points, and the weeks before it had been full of damaging stories.

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• 5. Campaign Controversies

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  Two decades before the campaign, Nawrocki had been a boxer, and contact with a future criminal from that time surfaced during the race. Opposing politicians attacked him for it, and speculation began over whether Law and Justice would replace him. Polling showed that the vast plurality of people did not expect a replacement.

  Onet.pl then reported that Nawrocki owned a second apartment, even though he had declared in a debate that he owned just one. He explained that he had obtained it from an elderly man in pre-trial detention, in return for a pledge of lifelong care. It then emerged that the man had been placed in a state care facility without Nawrocki's involvement. Accusations of exploitation followed.

  Nawrocki defended the legality of the deal and donated the property to charity. Some journalists then claimed the man regained access to it. Nawrocki said he had regularly tried to visit the man, without success.

  The second round brought a 70 versus 70 fight between football fans of Lechia Gdańsk and Lech Poznań, known in Polish as an ustawka. It emerged that Nawrocki had taken part. Under criticism, he said Prime Minister Donald Tusk had also joined in football hooliganism in his youth. He called such fights "noble battles". It also came to light that he has Chelsea and Lechia Gdańsk tattoos on his torso.

  Further stories alleged that in his youth he worked as a bodyguard for prostitutes at the five-star Grand Hotel in Sopot. During a presidential debate he used a nicotine pouch on air, which raised concerns about a possible nicotine addiction.

  The fighter's image was also part of his pitch. Early in the campaign he appeared in workout videos and compared himself to Rocky. His campaign merchandise carried the catchphrase "Now Rocky", a play on his surname. In his own telling, he was a "flesh and bone man", or człowiek z krwi i kości in Polish.

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• 6. War With The Government

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  Nawrocki was inaugurated on the 6th of August 2025, succeeding Andrzej Duda. On the same day he took part in the ceremony in which he accepted authority over the Polish Armed Forces. His first months were marked by confrontation with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the ruling coalition, and he pointed to his large and recent social mandate as justification.

  Nawrocki calls Tusk the worst prime minister of the Third Polish Republic, yet says he is willing to work with him. The two held their first meeting on the 14th of August. Analysts see the fall of Tusk's coalition and early parliamentary elections as a goal for Nawrocki. They also see him competing with the government over lawmaking, though the president's role is mainly representative. He has spoken of seeking a "new formula of cooperation" between the president and parliament. Some observers add that he aspires to lead the political right, which could threaten figures such as Jarosław Kaczyński.

  On the 21st of August 2025, Nawrocki used the presidential veto for the first time. The target was an omnibus bill on wind turbine deregulation and an extension of the energy price freeze. He said the deregulation was pushed by a wind turbine lobby and was unsafe, and he promised his own price freeze bill. His method is to veto coalition laws and send back versions with the disputed provisions removed.

  He also submits his own bills. In his first weeks he proposed reviving the old Central Communication Port project and abolishing PIT for families with more than one child. He proposed raising the income tax threshold to an annual income of 140,000 PLN and extending the ban on selling Polish land to foreigners.

  On the 3rd of November 2025, he introduced a bill titled "Retiring with Dignity". It would raise the minimum wage to 2,000 PLN from 1,878 PLN. It would also index social pensions both by a percentage and by a fixed amount, with a guaranteed rise of at least 150 PLN for the lowest pensions. Dual pension indexation had been one of Tusk's 100 pledges in the 2023 election.

  On the 7th of August 2025, Nawrocki named Zbigniew Bogucki chief of his chancellery. That clashed with Law and Justice's wish to seat Przemysław Czarnek in the post. Paweł Szefernaker became chief of the cabinet, Marcin Przydacz took the bureau for international policy, and Rafał Leśkiewicz became press spokesperson. Sławomir Cenckiewicz was named chief of the National Security Bureau.

  On the 5th of August, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister restricted Cenckiewicz's access to secret information in protest. He accepted the nomination anyway, but resigned on the 23rd of April 2026. Bartosz Grodecki took over on the 8th of May 2026. The appointees came from two circles. Some were Nawrocki's coworkers at the Institute of National Remembrance, and others were Law and Justice politicians who left parliament for the chancellery.

  His inaugural speech set a target of 2030 for a new Constitution, along with a Council for the Reform of the System of the State. According to RMF FM, presidential adviser Dariusz Dudek was to chair it, and it aimed to move Poland toward a semi-presidential system. Szefernaker said the goal was to empower the presidency.

  In November 2025, Nawrocki said he would work to start a constitutional referendum in the following year. The condition was that the government keep up what he called the "process of destabilisation of Poland" by not recognising judicial authorities. On the 3rd of May 2026, he created a Council for a New Constitution. Its founding members included Julia Przyłębska, Marek Jurek, Ryszard Legutko and Jacek Majchrowski.

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• 7. Diplomacy And Reparations

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  On the 13th of August 2025, Nawrocki rather than Tusk represented Poland at a teleconference between Donald Trump and European leaders. The subject was the coming Russia-United States summit in Alaska. Analysts call the dispute over who speaks for Poland abroad a "war for the seat". It cut the other way on the 18th of August, when no Polish representative attended a White House meeting. Some blamed Nawrocki.

  September 2025 was a month of travel. On the 3rd he visited the White House. On the 5th he was in Rome, meeting Pope Leo XIV, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella. On the 8th and 9th he met the presidents of Lithuania and Finland, Gitanas Nauseda and Alexander Stubb.

  On the 16th he met Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, and President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. From the 21st to the 24th he was in the United States. He met the Polish diaspora in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and attended the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

  No delegates from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs went with Nawrocki to the White House. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski therefore met United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately. At the meeting on the 3rd of September, Trump affirmed that American troops would stay in Poland. He also invited Nawrocki to the upcoming G20 summit in Florida.

  In 2025, Nawrocki cancelled a planned meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. His chancellery member Marcin Przydacz explained that the president disapproved of Orbán's relationship with Vladimir Putin and a recent visit to the Russian president. Contact would be limited to Visegrád Group meetings.

  In August 2025, Nawrocki vetoed a bill that would have extended financial support to Ukrainian refugees not employed in Poland. The bill also covered funding for Starlink systems to keep Ukraine connected to the internet. He turned down an invitation from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Kyiv and suggested that Zelenskyy should come to Poland instead. Public opinion supported that answer. He also pursued criminalising Banderite ideology and treating its symbols like Nazi and communist ones.

  On the EU side, Nawrocki opposes the EU-Mercosur Association Agreement. He promised to uphold the slogan "Polish farmer, Polish field, Polish bread on the Polish table", which in Polish is Polski rolnik, polskie pole, polski chleb na polskim stole.

  On the 31st of August 2025, the 45th anniversary of the August Agreements that created Solidarity, Nawrocki said Lech Wałęsa cannot be forgotten but must be remembered correctly and truthfully. The next day, a World War II anniversary, he "unequivocally" demanded that Germany pay Poland war reparations worth over 6 trillion PLN, or 1.4 trillion euros. During a visit to Germany in September he raised the subject and was rejected. Germany said the matter was "definitively regulated". Nawrocki's alternative idea was financial aid for Poland's military industry.

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• 8. Convictions And Approval

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  Nawrocki describes himself as a "representative of the broadly defined patriotic camp" and stresses that he has never belonged to a political party. He calls himself a "citizens' candidate" who will end the "Polish-Polish war". The Financial Times described him as "anti-liberal, anti-German, anti-EU".

  As a Catholic with culturally conservative views, Nawrocki in 2025 demonstratively put a copy of the cover of Gender Queer: A Memoir through a paper shredder. He opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions, and he supports broad criminalisation of abortion. On abortion he said: "I would not sign a law that would reinstate the agreement on abortion. As a future president, I cannot allow the abortion of children with Down syndrome." He and his wife also signed their son Antoni out of "health education" classes introduced by the Ministry of National Education under Barbara Nowacka.

  His economic program has been described as interventionist and nationalist. He calls for "a welfare state with zero VAT on food" and opposes adopting the euro. He signed a list of 11 pledges, including not raising the retirement age, defending minimum wages and keeping the ban on Sunday business activity. Poland's Solidarity trade union endorsed him on that basis. He backs nuclear energy as "the most secure and stable one", and he attacks "climate madness at the expense of Polish homes, workers and entrepreneurs".

  On security, Nawrocki said that "Russia is imperialist in its foundation whether it is white terror, red terror or modern terror". He wants a strong place in NATO, a close alliance with the United States and an army of 300,000 troops. He opposes conscription. He opposes Ukrainian membership in NATO or the European Union until Ukraine accepts responsibility for the genocide of Poles in Volhynia. Critics accused him of echoing Kremlin talking points. He replied: "I speak the language of Polish people. Millions want to say that Zelensky mistreats us, but they're silenced with 'you're spreading Putin's propaganda'."

  Admirers call him a "people's president", and his image has been compared to that of Donald Trump. As a campaign promise he ate a kebab with youth from a remote village. In his first months in office he remained one of Poland's most popular politicians. A United Surveys poll showed 73% approval among respondents aged 18-29 and 42% among those over 70.

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