Poland’s presidential election set for May 18

The Polish presidential election will take place on May 18, parliamentary speaker Szymon Hołownia announced Wednesday, adding that if there is a need for a second round, that will take place on June 1.

The current president, Andrzej Duda, allied with the far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party, will complete his second term this year on Aug. 6 and cannot legally run again.

May’s presidential election will be a make-or-break moment for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government. While the president’s role is somewhat symbolic, they can veto bills passed by parliament — an advantage Duda has used to effectively obstruct key legislation.

Polls suggest the election will be decided in a runoff vote between Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate for Tusk’s Civic Platform, and historian Karol Nawrocki, who has been nominated as PiS’s candidate despite not being a member of the party.

Nawrocki is currently trailing behind on 26.2 percent, with Trzaskowski being predicted 35.7 percent, according to a December poll from the Institute for Market and Social Research.

At the last presidential election in 2015, Duda went from being a virtual nobody on the backbenches of the European Parliament to defeating incumbent Bronisław Komorowski, who ran as an independent with the support of the Civic Platform.