“A major victory for Poland, a major victory for the Visegrád cooperation!” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote in a Facebook post on Monday, reacting to the results of Sunday's Polish presidential election, which was won by conservative Karol Nawrocki after a series of conflicting exit polls.
Péter Szijjártó, Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, also reacted to the results of the Polish presidential election. “Yet another victory for patriots: congratulations to Karol Nawrocki! Poland and Hungary are two good friends,” Szijjártó wrote on his Facebook page.
Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony posted a reaction during the night, but exit polls at the time indicated a victory for the candidate of the liberal ruling party, Rafał Trzaskowski, which Karácsony welcomed. "According to exit polls, my friend Rafał Trzaskowski, mayor of Warsaw, has won the Polish presidential election! I hope this will indeed be the case!“ Karácsony wrote during the night, but the mayor did not comment on the final result by the time of our article's publication.
”Since their favoured candidate won by a margin of 51:49, Orbán and his cronies are celebrating the Polish democracy they were mourning just yesterday. If the comrades have confidence in the wisdom of the Polish people, then it is time to treat their own compatriots like adults as well,“ Péter Magyar, the leader of the Tisza Party wrote on his Facebook page. In his post, the politician called for direct presidential elections in Hungary. ”Enough of these dirty political deals. Let the people themselves decide who will lead our country!“ wrote Magyar, who believes that we shouldn't have ”loyal, trustworthy comrades picked in party offices filled with cigar-smoke“ for the post, and added that ”Hungarians do not deserve a president who is playing ping-pong while the authorities are destroying what's left of the rule of law".
With Nawrocki's victory, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, led by Jarosław Kaczynski, which was forced into opposition 18 months ago, has struck back at the pro-EU, more liberal center-right governing coalition of the Civic Platform (PO) led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The liberal pro-government candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski, received 49.11 percent of the vote, while Nawrocki received 50.89 percent. Nighttime exit polls indicated a very narrow victory for the Warsaw mayor, but later, within the margin of statistical error, history graduate Nawrocki emerged as the winner.
Nawrocki's campaign received a boost from the right-wing political conference CPAC Poland. The candidate had previously even been received by US President Donald Trump in Washington, and Kristi Noem, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, also attended CPAC Poland. George Simion, who recently lost the Romanian presidential election, was also present at the conference in Rzeszów. Simion said that if Nawrocki were to lose the presidential election, Viktor Orbán's system would be the next domino to fall.
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