Karol Nawrocki
Karol Nawrocki was elected President of Poland in June 2025, defeating the Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski by roughly one percentage point in a run-off. Born in 1983 in Gdańsk, he is a historian by training, with a doctorate on anti-communist opposition, and had never held elected office. He worked at the Institute of National Remembrance, the state body responsible for investigating crimes of the Nazi and communist periods and for public history, and directed the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk from 2021. His appointment there followed a long dispute in which the previous government replaced the museum's founding director and revised its permanent exhibition to emphasise Polish suffering and heroism over the comparative and European framing the original curators had chosen. He was a partisan in that argument and was rewarded for it. He became president of the Institute in 2021, and was prominent in the removal of Soviet-era monuments. He was nominated in 2025 by Law and Justice as a nominally independent candidate, and campaigned on conservative social positions, opposition to the European Union's migration pact and to the green deal, and scepticism about Ukrainian accession while supporting Poland's role as a front-line state. The result created a divided government: a president with veto power facing Donald Tusk's coalition, which had governed since 2023 and had been unable to pass much of its programme past his predecessor either. He took office in August 2025. He is the youngest person to hold the office. His campaign was complicated by reporting on a flat acquired from an elderly man, which he transferred to the state.
- Lived: 1983 CE – ?
- Nationality: Polish
- Roles: President of Poland (2025-present)
