And here is a snap reaction from former Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski – it was during his term 1995 to 2005 that Poland joined Nato and the EU – speaking on TVP Info. “The stakes are huge. We are fighting for Poland to be on the side of European democracies, [otherwise] it’d be on the side of European troublemakers, those who want to go down the [Hungarian PM Viktor] Orbán or [Slovak PM Robert] Fico route.” He offers his public backing for Trzaskowski in the second round. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk just reacted to Polish exit polls, stressing the importance of the second round vote as he said “everything is at stake now” and “the next two weeks will decide the future” of Poland. “Not one step back!,” he said. On Portugal: it will be a really big result for Chega if they really come above 20% in the final results – up from 18% at the last vote. If the polls are right, then Chega’s rise continue – albeit not as dramatically as in the last two elections. After taking 1.3% of the vote and picking up its first seat in the national assembly in the 2019 election, it won 7.2% of the vote in 2022, securing 12 seats. At the last general election in March last year, the party won 18% of the vote and took 50 seats. Like Vox, its ideological bedfellows over the border in Spain, Portugal’s Chega party has, in recent years, thoroughly detonated the longstanding myth that the neighbouring countries’ 20th-century histories of dictatorship had inoculated them against far-right politics. After massive breakthroughs over the past few years, both are now the third biggest parties in their national parliaments. Chega could even be the second biggest, according to one of the exit polls. Chega has managed to capitalise on widespread dissatisfaction with Portugal’s mainstream left and right parties as the country continues to suffer a housing crisis, stressed health and education systems, and low wages. As the political scientist André Azevedo Alves told me last time round, Chega’s leader, André Ventura, has proved thoroughly adept at leveraging political disenchantment and fears over corruption. “It’s Ventura sensing that there is a political opportunity because of this widespread discontent with the political class, left and right,” he said. “I think that’s one of the main things that Chega feeds on.” But judging by previous comments from other leaders, Chega appears to be no closer to entering government – largely due to the steadfast and enduring refusal of the AD leader, Luís Montenegro, to even contemplate any such deal. The centre-right PM said no last year, and he is still saying no. According to Montenegro: “Governing with Chega is impossible for three reasons: it isn’t reliable in its thinking; it behaves like a political weathervane, always changing its mind, and it’s not suited to the exercise of government.” The small Liberal Initiative party – which could throw its weight behind Montenegro, bringing his coalition a handful of seats but leaving him well short of a majority in the country’s 230-seat assembly – has also categorically refused to do anything that would help Chega into power. Recent months have also somewhat tarnished the Chega brand, showing that it, too, is susceptible to the kind of corruption and sleaze scandals it has been fond of railing against. In January, Chega expelled one of its MPs from the party after he was accused of stealing suitcases at several airports. Another member of the party was caught drunk-driving the same month, while a third has been charged with paying for oral sex with an underage male who was 15 at the time. Meanwhile, the party has returned to its trademark attacks on Portugal’s Roma community, prompting angry protests at some of its events. Speaking earlier this week, Ventura – who has previously accused the country’s Roma population of having “a chronic problem of dependence on benefits, delinquency and violence” – said he would stand up to “threats” from the Roma people. Watching speeches by Trzaskowski and Nawrocki, you can clearly see the battle lines for the second round in Poland already emerging tonight. Trzaskowski has made an early pitch to left-wing voters as he made a pledge to liberalise abortion laws and push the government to get on with its reforms. He also portrays Nawrocki as a “radical” candidate, warning voters that he is “no Andrzej Duda”, the current conservative incumbent, but that he is much further to the right. Meanwhile, Nawrocki makes it clear that he needs to win to stop prime minister Donald Tusk from getting “all the power” as he makes an appeal to right- and far-right voters to back him in the second round to “save Poland”. Expect more of that rhetoric in the coming two weeks. It is super, super close and flows from other candidates will play a crucial role here. There are two exit polls in Portugal, but Luís Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance is expected to come first in both of them, with somewhere between 29% and 34% of the vote. The polls don’t seem to agree on who will be second, with Pitagórica poll saying it will be the far-right Chega (19.5% to 25.5%), just marginally ahead of the opposition Socialist party (PS) at 19.4% to 25.4%. The CESOP-UCP exit poll has them the other way round, but with very similar numbers: PS at 21% to 26%, and Chega at 20% to 24%. But, as Trzaskowski says in his immediate comments, the race is “very close”. In fact, it is much closer than anticipated. A win is a win tonight, but these results will make Trzaskowski’s team nervous ahead of the run-off in two weeks’ time. Far-right libertarian Sławomir Mentzen is third with 15.4%, clearly capturing some of the disenchanted vote, as expected. I attended his rally earlier this week, and you can read my report here: There is also a surprise in the fourth place: it’s ultra far-right candidate Grzegorz Braun – under probe for using fire extinguisher to put out Hanukah candles in Polish parliament – with 6.2%, well above the expectations and ahead of any of the left-wing candidates. The two favourites in Poland – centrist Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and radical-right historian Karol Nawrocki – are, as expected, safely through to the run-off on 1 June, according to the exit poll by Ipsos. Rafał Trzaskowski (PO) 30.8% Karol Nawrocki (PiS) 29.1% Sławomir Mentzen 15.4% Grzegorz Braun 6.2% Adrian Zandberg 5.2% Szymon Hołownia 4.8% Magdalena Biejat 4.1% Joanna Senyszyn 1.3% Krzysztof Stanowski 1.3% Marek Jakubiak 0.9% Artur Bartoszewicz 0.5% Maciej Maciak 0.4% Marek Woch 0.1% Exit polls in Poland and Portugal are imminent. Ready? Given the Polish electoral blackout rules, we don’t have too many comments from key candidates, but here are their pictures from when they cast their votes earlier today. Speaking after he voted on Sunday morning, Portugal’s caretaker prime minister, the AD leader Luís Montenegro, said he was hoping for a good turnout and for an election that would “produce positive solutions [and] greater capacity for the country to grow and prosper, so that there can be greater social justice and more opportunities”. He said Portugal wanted “more stability” as it returned to the polls for the third time since 2022. Montenegro, whose coalition is forecast to finish first but once again fall short of a majority, insisted he was taking nothing for granted. “I will only think about the final speech after the results appear,” he told reporters in the city of Espinho. “There is no point in thinking about it too soon. I am very calm, as is my habit. And also confident.” The PS leader, Pedro Nuno Santos, called for huge participation in the election after he cast his ballot this morning, saying he did not want there to be any unpleasant surprises on Monday. “This is the time to call for participation, for respect for democracy, for civic participation, for tolerant respect for everyone – but with a lot of participation, that’s what I want,” he said. “If we don’t want to be surprised by things we don’t want on Monday, it’s important that people participate and vote.” Andre Ventura, the leader of the far-right Chega party, shrugged off concerns about his recent ill health – he has been rushed to hospital twice during the final week of campaigning – and urged people to get out and vote. “Today is not about my health,” he said in Lisbon. “It’s the health of democracy that is at stake … Make your choice, leave your house, choose the future of the country, regardless of what it is, regardless of who it is. Today it is in our hands,” he urged.” Portugal returned to the polls for the third time in just over three years on Sunday to vote in a snap general election triggered by the country’s centre-right prime minister, Luís Montenegro, who is under pressure over his family’s business activities. Montenegro, who leads the Social Democratic party – the largest party in Portugal’s ruling Democratic Alliance (AD) coalition – is facing political and judicial scrutiny over a data protection consultancy that he founded in 2021 and which he transferred to his wife and sons the following year. The prime minister – who has denied any wrongdoing or ethical breaches – responded to the accusations by staging a vote of confidence in his administration in March, saying he wanted “to end the atmosphere of permanent insinuations and intrigues”. But he lost the vote and a fresh election was called. The unexpected election is unlikely to drastically alter Portugal’s political landscape. Recent polls suggest a similar result to the last election in March 2024, putting the AD on about 33%, the opposition Socialist party (PS) on 26% and the far-right Chega party on 17%. Last time round, the AD won 80 seats to the PS’s 78, while Chega, which is led by the former football pundit André Ventura, enjoyed a surge in support and increased its seat count from 12 to 50. Once again, Portugal’s housing crisis has become a major issue during this latest campaign. “We’re talking about the same things we did last year,” said Filomena Martins, the deputy editor of the online Observador newspaper. Poles are voting in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, in a vote seen as a “make or break” moment for the country’s pro-European coalition government, which is still attempting to reverse damage inflicted on the rule of law by the previous populist-nationalist administration it ousted two years ago. Rafał Trzaskowski, the staunchly pro-European centrist Warsaw mayor from the prime minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO), is the favourite to win the election, but his lead over his conservative rival, the historian Karol Nawrocki, has narrowed over the last few weeks of the campaign. Since coming to power in 2023 on a wave of discontent with the populist right Law and Justice party (PiS), the government led by the former European Council president Tusk has struggled to follow through on promises to reverse illiberal changes to the justice system and liberalise abortion laws. The outgoing president, Andrzej Duda, is a close ally of the previous PiS government and a supporter of Donald Trump. He opposed the changes pursued by the new administration and blocked some decisions, including ambassadorial nominations. A potential opposition win would extend the current standoff, prompting years of political instability. In polls published before the country went into electoral silence on Friday, Trzaskowski, who lost to Duda in 2020, and Nawrocki were expected to comfortably come in the first two places, progressing to the run-off on 1 June. However, in a sign of growing frustration among voters, the combined vote share of the top two candidates is forecast to be the lowest since the first presidential election in 1990. Sławomir Mentzen, 38, a leader of the far-right Confederation party, is the outside candidate, who briefly challenged Nawrocki for second place but has faded over the past month. Right, we will get back to Romania shortly, but let’s take a look at Poland and Portugal when we should get first numbers in the next 10 minutes. So let’s take a look at what’s at stake there. We are getting first official results through, and with 49.8% of votes counted, Dan is marginally ahead at 50.4% with Simion’s 49.6%. I will bring you regular updates here. We are getting more lines from Nicușor Dan’s first speech after the results were announced. “There will be a difficult period ahead, necessary for economic rebalancing to lay the foundations of a healthy society. Please have hope and patience,” Dan said, as reported by Reuters. The agency noted that if official results confirm the exit polls, Dan would need to nominate a prime minister to negotiate a majority in parliament to reduce Romania’s budget deficit - the largest in the EU – as well as to reassure investors and try to avoid a credit rating downgrade. That point by Jon about exit polls being only as good as the answers they get from voters is absolutely crucial. With so many Simion voters having little trust in the electoral process – in line with their candidate’s comments – there is potential for all sorts of problems with data if they, say, refused to answer pollsters’ questions. And, as mentioned earlier, then we have the diaspora vote, not included in exit polls. With record numbers of voters overseas, they could play a significant role here. For what it’s worth, Simion appears to be doubling down on his rejection of the exit polls: he just posted on X claiming without offering any further evidence that he is “the new president of Romania”. Well: that’s not what the exit polls say, so let’s wait for more official results. But Dan’s rival, the far-right George Simion, is not willing to accept these numbers. In fighting comments after the result was announced, he rejects the exit polls and quotes his own (unverified) data, claiming that he is actually ahead, in a passionate victory speech. Expect this to be a long night. In his immediate comments after the exit polls were announced, Nicușor Dan praises the “impressive strength” of the Romanian society that wants “profound change”, and says the victory shows Romanians wanted “dialogue, not hatred”. It’s perhaps not that surprising given massive 64.5% turnout, up from 53% in the first round. Analysts have all said a higher turnout would favour Dan. But it’s worth remembering the first round exit polls underestimated Simion by nearly 10 points. They depend on voters being honest about who they voted for. That’s a higher result for Nicușor Dan than perhaps expected. The turnout clearly plays a role here, too. But these are just exit polls, and they do not seem to account for the crucial diaspora vote. Second exit poll CURS: Nicușor Dan 54.1% George Simion 45.9% Exit poll Avangarde: Nicușor Dan 54.9% George Simion 45.1% Romanian exit polls are expected imminently. Ready? A key point to watch for as the Romanian results start to come in after polling stations close at 9pm local time (8pm CET) will be the vote of the country’s large diaspora, which in the first round two weeks ago voted more than 60% for Simion. Over the past couple of decades almost 20% of Romania’s population have gone looking for better opportunities abroad and estimates of the current diaspora begin at about 4 million. By 7pm local time, the astonishingly high number of 1.6 million already had cast their votes, including more than 260,000 in the UK. “The diaspora has been strongly anti-system for some time, which now means they are strongly far-right,” said Cristian Pirvelescu, head of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest. “In Italy, where the Romanian community is more than 1 million, nearly 75% voted for Simion in the first round. Romanians abroad live in what is a kind of ‘virtual Romania’, very online, and they don’t believe in the traditional media.” The far-right candidate also did well in Germany and Spain, which have large Romanian communities. “Their vote is a protest vote against the traditional parties, which are seen as corrupt,” said the Sciences-Po researcher Antonela Cappelle-Pogacean. “It’s also a vote with socioeconomic motivations, since in these western societies, the Romanian diaspora is largely working-class. Finally, it’s also a vote about identity – they are in a way torn between their rebuilt lives and desire to return to Romania.” In central and eastern Europe – countries such as Poland, Moldova and Hungary – the pro-European candidate, Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, finished first, most likely reflecting Simion’s opposition to sending further military aid to Ukraine. There are more than 900 polling stations abroad, with voting allowed over three days. Whatever its motivations, the diaspora vote – perhaps more than 1 million ballots, as much as 10% of the first-round total – can clearly swing a tight election. And complicating matters further, few Romanian opinion polls, which are in any case not especially accurate, attempt to predict it. Interestingly, however, one poll this week that did include voters living abroad showed Simion and Dan neck-and-neck. Turnout at home and abroad, all observers agree, will be critical on Sunday, with a higher participation rate seen as favouring Dan. To make things more complicated, Romanian media reported that there are as many as three companies doing exit polls tonight. With the race being so close, it may be best to wait a bit until we make any determination on the result, but we will bring you them as they drop. And there is one more element in the Romanian vote that we need to keep an eye on and that makes things more complicated, and that it’s the (incredibly high) number of diaspora voters. Over to Jon Henley to explain. Both candidates in the Romanian election obviously have long cast their votes. “This is a turning point, a crucial election,” the Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan said as he cast his ballot, adding that he voted “for a European direction ... not Romania’s isolation”. His far-right rival, George Simion, said he “voted against the inequalities and injustices done to the Romanian people” and “for our future to be decided by Romanian people”. Romanians are voting in a pivotal presidential run-off that could radically alter their country’s strategic alignment and economic prospects. The Romanian contest, the most consequential of the three, pits a brash, EU-critical, Trump-admiring populist, Georgie Simion, against a centrist independent, Nicușor Dan, in a knife-edge vote that analysts have called most important in the country’s post-communist history. Recent polls have shown the gap between the two candidates closing, with one putting them neck and neck and another placing Dan – who has described the vote as a battle between “a pro-western and an anti-western Romania” – ahead. The vote is a rerun of last November’s ballot, won by a far-right, Moscow-friendly firebrand, Călin Georgescu, who was barred from standing again after the vote was cancelled amid allegations of campaign finance violations and Russian meddling. Simion has promised to nominate Georgescu, who is under formal investigation on counts including misreporting campaign spending, illegal use of digital technology and promoting fascist groups, as prime minister if he becomes president. Romanian presidents have a semi-executive role with considerable powers over foreign policy, national security, defence spending and judicial appointments. They can also dissolve parliament if MPs reject two prime ministerial nominations. We start the night in Romania, so let’s go straight to Jon Henley to quickly bring us up to date on what’s at stake tonight. Dobry wieczór, boa noite, bună seara, or simply good evening and welcome to our live coverage of Super Sunday in Europe with crucial elections in Poland, Portugal, and Romania. It’s Jakub Krupa here, in Warsaw, to guide you through tonight’s exit polls, snap reactions and early results coming from the three EU countries. We will start with Romania where the polls will close in about half an hour – 7pm BST, 8pm CEST, 9pm local time – followed by Poland and Portugal an hour later. Romanians are voting in a pivotal presidential run-off that could radically alter their country’s strategic alignment and economic prospects. The election pits a brash, EU-critical, Trump-admiring populist, George Simion, against centrist independent Bucharest mayor Nicuşor Dan in a knife-edge vote that analysts have called most important in the country’s post-communist history. We will later move to Poland for the first round of the presidential election there which could be a pivotal moment for the country’s coalition government, and to Portugal which hosts its third election in three years. It may take a little while before we get any conclusive results though as margins are expected to be fairly thin. But, but, but – don’t worry! We will bring you all the key updates: starting with exit polls, through snap reactions and late polls, all the way to first analyses and official results. I’ll bring you updates from our correspondents across Europe, including Jon Henley and Sam Jones who followed the campaigns in Romania and Portugal, and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels. Ready? Let’s go.
Author: Jakub Krupa in Warsaw