“I was disappointed by the presidential election result - but surprised? No. It was close, it could have gone either way. I would’ve preferred it to go the other,” he told the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita on Monday.
Kwaśniewski said that a year and a half of Civic Coalition (KO) government had not helped incumbent Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski win the country’s top office. However, he added that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government “will not rush” into calling early parliamentary elections.
Although Trzaskowski secured more than 10 million votes, Kwaśniewski called the outcome “painful”, noting it marked the KO candidate’s second defeat in a presidential race.
In a separate interview with RMF FM radio, Kwaśniewski said Poland remained caught in a political duopoly between Donald Tusk, who leads the centrist-liberal coalition, and Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Despite Kaczyński turning 76 in 2025, Kwaśniewski noted he would still be younger than U.S. President Donald Trump. He added that Tusk, 68, also appeared in no hurry to retire from politics.
Kwaśniewski said that in future elections, the KO–PiS duopoly could struggle to win more than 60% of the vote combined. He ruled out the possibility of a grand coalition between the two parties, saying past opportunities had been missed and that the leaders of both camps now “mutually hate each other”.
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Source: Rzeczpospolita/RMFFM/X/@Rozmowa_RMF