How Albania’s history can inspire people of Middle Eastern states in turmoil

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Updated 18 September 2022
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How Albania’s history can inspire people of Middle Eastern states in turmoil

  • Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s permanent representative to UN, recalls two different eras: before and after communism
  • Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries can help to imbue other Middle Eastern countries with positive energy

NEW YORK CITY: There are few forms of human suffering in the world today that the Balkan country of Albania had not known along its tortured path through the 20th century.

It experienced North Korea-style isolation when the repressive Stalinist dictatorship that ruled it from 1945 to 1985 cut the country off from outside information and influences, on top of Albania’s drawback of being a historically obscure and inaccessible country.

Absolute leader Enver Hoxha cut ties not only with the West, but also with the former Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union itself, and eventually China.

Under his 41-year rule, Albanians had known what contemporary Syrians know all too well: The cruelty and absurdity of life under a totalitarian regime, with countless deaths and forced disappearance of loved ones into prison camps, all while the rest of the country plunged into economic destitution and misery.




Albania's head of state Enver Hoxha votes on November 1978. ( AFP)

Similar to the Lebanese and the Yemenis of today, the people of Albania then had known only a life of queues for bread and fuel.

The big Ponzi scheme the Lebanese awoke to and have continued to reel under since 2019, has a precedent in Albania as well. In the 1990s, the country was convulsed by the dramatic rise and collapse of pyramid schemes, but in a more literal sense.

Hundreds of thousands of Albanians lost their savings. When the schemes collapsed, riots erupted across the country, the government fell, the nation descended into anarchy, and a near civil war ensued in which 2,000 Albanians were killed.

And similar to the Afghans, the Ukrainians, and the more than 200 million other migrants on the move in the world today, Albanians are familiar with the pain of exile and displacement. During the civil war, they fled the country en masse. Many Albanians trying to escape were shot. Again, in the late 1990s, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo to escape marauding Serbian forces.

But then came the rupture. In December 1990, just over a year after the Berlin wall was torn down, the communist government of Albania fell, ushering in the end of history after which Albania could follow only one path: Toward capitalism, democracy, and freedom.

Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s permanent representative to the UN, clearly remembers a world that was violently split asunder into two: Before and after authoritarian communism.

He told Arab News: “I grew up in a country where you have one newspaper, one voice, one line, and you are not allowed to think. I was told by my parents to think twice about what I said and to whom I said it.”

Freedom, he said, begins “when you put in doubt what you hear. Freedom does not mean that you can do everything you want. No. Freedom is built through institutions, laws, rules, accountability, justice.”

The search for freedom has a deep resonance in a country such as Albania, the chronicle of whose political history, according to Hoxha, has a recurrent theme: Domination.

“Through centuries, Albanians have fought to really find their place, their rights, and to define their future. They have not always had the chance,” he added. And he noted that Albanians had always resisted through “language, culture, identity.”

He recalled a time when his country was a pariah in the world. “And of course, when you are a small country and not an important one as we were at the time, you just get forgotten. You may think of yourself as the center of the world, but in reality, you are forgotten.”




Images of Roman Catholic clerics killed or persecuted in Albania, ahead of a visit Pope Francis in 2014. Under communism, Albania banned all religion and sought to suppress faith leaders for decades. (AFP)

Thirty years later Albania is anything but forgotten. As the world experiences unprecedented upheaval, with woes ranging from the coronavirus pandemic and war in Ukraine to the drought and imminent famine in Somalia, Albania has been one of the loudest voices championing the underdogs from its seat in the UN Security Council.

Member countries, who often campaign for a seat for years, have a say in peacekeeping missions and the council’s other approaches to conflict hotspots, plus a strong voice on issues of international peace and security.

What in the past 30 years transformed Albania from a pariah state to a vocal advocate of universal values on the international stage? What happened along the way?

Hoxha said: “What happened was transformation. The progress and change seen (in the early 1990s) were like nothing else Albania has known for the past 2,500 years. So sweeping was the change, so strong was the desire, and so profound was the transformation.”

He is aware that Albania’s painful past will sound familiar to people in many countries even in these post-modern times.




Albania’s Permanent UN Representative Ferit Hoxha during an interview with Arab News at the UN General Assembly. (AN Photo)

His impassioned speeches at the Security Council carry within them the conviction of lived experience. When he enshrines the UN Charter and universal principles in his statements, they take on a renewed meaning. His words in the chamber have the ring of truth and clarity.

During a recent Security Council meeting on Syria, for instance, Hoxha began by saying that there was no other place in the world where the expression “no end in sight” applies to than Syria.

He pointed out that after 11 years of violence and “everything in the book of crimes committed by many but especially by that regime that started it all,” the solution in Syria now hinged crucially on the political process, “and I don’t think there will be a meaningful political process without accountability.”

Hoxha added: “If I were a senior citizen (in Syria) today, despite how much I might have suffered, despite how many members of my family might have died or are missing among those 130,000 people who are unaccounted for, and despite many members of my family being in the notorious prisons of the regime, I will ask one question: Can I build my future with the same people? Can I build my future with the same domination of one part of the country over everything else?

“If the answer is yes, then we are going to see the next chapter of the war begin.

“Because there is one thing that we have learned from Albania’s thousands of years of domination: That at the end of the day, whatever we do, people want freedom, peace, and prosperity. Deep down you have that boiling desire to really live a dignified life. And there is no human being on Earth that would like to live without a minimum of dignity.

“That’s why for me, without accountability, Syria will not see an end.”




An officer salutes members of Albania's sole military academy train 30 kilometers from Tirana, preparing themselves to work with the international force to be deployed in the country. (AFP/File Photo) 

From Palestine to Yemen, Libya and Lebanon, there was a common thread, according to Hoxha, and that was “instability.” Although each situation was unique, Hoxha laid the blame for instability at the feet of the political classes who had failed to come together or move on from their own narrow interests to those of their people and country.

“That’s one big weakness of the political class. When the political class is not really able to come together, then you have weak institutions which do not permit the country to really move forward.

“So, there is one big test of maturity for many countries to acquire: Do we want to build things for all of us, or just for some of us?”

That, he said, was the case in Yemen, for example, where a “big drive” of investment in a process initiated by the Yemeni political class would provide a buffer against and significantly weaken the many external influences of self-seeking countries that were bearing upon the Yemenis.

“That’s why now we are so eager to support the truce, extend it, and resolve the remaining issues, such as the closure of roads in and out of Taiz, the Houthis’ lack of cooperation, and so on.

“The objective is to get the necessary attention and support by the council. The support of the Security Council is crucial because it is that kind of positive tsunami you cannot go against,” Hoxha added.

There is one thing that we have learned from Albania’s thousands of years of domination: That at the end of the day, whatever we do, people want freedom, peace, and prosperity.

Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s permanent representative to UN

In Libya, the problem was legitimacy, according to Hoxha.

“Today, we have two governments in Libya, two parallel settings, and nothing good can come out of that until some legitimacy is restored.

“Everywhere we have seen seizure of power by force or by other means, or by proxies, that hasn’t lasted. It may have lasted for a certain time, but it failed to win the hearts and the minds of the people.”

Just like Albania had friends that stood by its people as they scrambled to find their bearings in a new world after years of isolation, Hoxha believes the Middle East can benefit from the “positive energy” that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries can radiate into an otherwise miserable region.

Hoxha pointed out that their role was nowhere else as needed as it was in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

He described Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf countries as important players who were becoming more active.




A handful of Albanian communists shout slogans holding a portrait of late Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha during a May Day march in Tirana on May 1, 2016. (AFP)

“They can be extremely helpful in advancing not only the cause of women, peace and security, and advancing rights everywhere, but also, more than anything else, they can help to infuse the countries of the wider Middle East with positive energy, to enable them to get out of the rut in which they have been stuck for the past 70 years or more.”

Hoxha said the power of Gulf countries was “immense,” their influence was growing, and their ability was there, but that they needed to act in a more coordinated way.

“Because they are important per se, but they also have friends and relations with other powers. And I hope this is used not only bilaterally, but regionally and globally to really push for peace and a solution for the Middle East.

“We are asking for a bigger, more coordinated role with other actors in making sure that we have a process that would really help everyone to move forward in the most complex and the most tragic conflict that we have known since the Second World War, which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he added.

 


Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say. 7 people were killed

Updated 9 sec ago
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Explosions caused 2 bridges in western Russia to collapse, officials say. 7 people were killed

Explosions caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, officials said Sunday, without saying what had caused the blasts. In one of the incidents, seven people were killed and dozens were injured.
The first bridge, in the Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, collapsed on top of a passenger train on Saturday, causing the casualties. The train’s driver was among those killed, state-run Russian Railways said.

Specialists of emergency services work at the scene, after a road bridge collapsed onto railway tracks derailing an approaching train in the Bryansk region, Russia, on June 1. (Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via REUTERS)

Hours later, officials said a second train derailed when the bridge beneath it collapsed in the nearby Kursk region, which also borders Ukraine.
In that collapse, a freight train was thrown off its rails onto the road below as the explosion collapsed the bridge, local acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said Sunday. The crash sparked a fire, but there were no casualties, he said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, said in a statement that explosions had caused the two bridges to collapse, but did not give further details. Several hours later, it edited the statement, which was posted on social media, to remove the words “explosions” but did not provide an explanation.

This handout photograph posted on the Telegram account of Kursk region acting governor Alexander Khinshtein on June 1, 2025 shows a damaged freight train at the site of a railway bridge collapse in the Kursk region. (Telegram/@Hinshtein)

The committee said that it would be investigating the incidents as potential acts of terrorism.
Rescue workers cleared debris from both sites, while some of those injured were transported to Moscow for treatment. Photos posted by government agencies in Bryansk appeared to show train carriages ripped apart and lying amid fallen concrete from the collapsed bridge. Other footage on social media was apparently taken from inside vehicles on the road that had managed to avoid driving onto the bridge before it collapsed.

Specialists of emergency services work at the scene, after a road bridge collapsed onto railway tracks derailing an approaching train in the Bryansk region, Russia, on June 1. (Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via REUTERS)

Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz announced three days of mourning for the victims, starting Monday.
Damage to railway tracks was also found Sunday by inspectors working on the line elsewhere in the Bryansk region, Moscow Railway said in a statement. It did not say whether the damage was linked to the collapsed bridges.
In the past, some officials have accused pro-Ukrainian saboteurs of attacking Russia’s railway infrastructure. The details surrounding such incidents, however, are limited and cannot be independently verified.
Ukraine’s military intelligence, known by the Ukrainian abbreviation GUR, said Sunday that a Russian military freight train carrying food and fuel had been blown up on its way to Crimea. It did not claim the attack was carried out by GUR or mention the bridge collapses.
The statement said Moscow’s key artery with the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region and Crimea has been destroyed.
Russia forces have been pushing into the region of Zaporizhzhia in eastern Ukraine since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia took Crimea and annexed it in 2014.
 


6 injured in Colorado attack the FBI is investigating as terrorism

Updated 35 min 56 sec ago
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6 injured in Colorado attack the FBI is investigating as terrorism

  • The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was taken into custody
  • Suspect yelled 'Free Palestine' as he attacked protesters with a makeshift flamethrower, say police

BOULDER, Colorado: Six people were injured Sunday in a molotov cocktail attack in Boulder, Colorado, and US federal law enforcement said they were investigating it as an act of terrorism.

Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Denver, said a 45-year-old suspect, identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was taken into custody.

The suspect yelled “Free Palestine” as he attacked a crowd with a makeshift flamethrower, the FBI said. No charges were immediately announced but officials said they expect to hold him “fully accountable.”

The attack took place at a popular pedestrian mall in Boulder where demonstrators with a volunteer group called Run For Their Lives had gathered to raise visibility for the hostages who remain in Gaza as a war between Israel and Hamas continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States.

Video from the scene showed a witness shouting, “He’s right there. He’s throwing Molotov cocktails,” as a police officer with his gun drawn advanced on a bare-chested suspect with containers in each hand.

Injuries ranged from serious to minor. Soliman was also injured and was taken to the hospital to be treated, but authorities didn’t elaborate on the nature of his injuries.

The attack occurred more than a week after the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington by a Chicago man who yelled “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza” as he was being led away by police.

FBI leaders in Washington said they were treating the Boulder attack as an act of terrorism, and the Justice Department — which leads investigations into acts of violence driven by religious, racial or ethnic motivations — decried the attack as a “needless act of violence, which follows recent attacks against Jewish Americans.”
“This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X.
Israel’s war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. They are still holding 58 hostages, around a third believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 54,000 people in Hamas-run Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The offensive has destroyed vast areas, displaced around 90 percent of the population and left people almost completely reliant on international aid.
Police in Boulder were more circumspect about a motive. Police Chief Steve Redfearn said it “would be irresponsible for me to speculate” while witnesses were still being interviewed but noted that the group that had gathered in support of the hostages had assembled peacefully and that injuries of the victims — ranging from serious to minor — were consistent with them having been set on fire.
The violence comes four years after a shooting rampage at a grocery store in Boulder, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Denver, that killed four people. The gunman was sentenced to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
Multiple blocks of the pedestrian mall area were evacuated by police. The scene shortly after the attack was tense, as law enforcement agents with a police dog walked through the streets looking for threats and instructed the public to stay clear of the pedestrian mall.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that he was “closely monitoring” the situation, adding that “hate-filled acts of any kind are unacceptable.”


High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns

Updated 02 June 2025
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High energy costs threaten UK manufacturing’s future, industry warns

  • Manufacturing association Make UK said it should cancel climate levies imposed on industrial energy costs and adopt a fixed industrial energy price

MANCHESTER, England: Britain needs to cut industrial energy bills that are the highest among major advanced economies if its aspirations for a healthy manufacturing sector are to succeed, industry body Make UK said on Monday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is working on an industrial strategy to put British manufacturing — hit hard by Brexit, soaring energy costs and global trade wars — on a solid footing for the years ahead.
Manufacturing association Make UK said it should cancel climate levies imposed on industrial energy costs and adopt a fixed industrial energy price.
Britain had the highest industrial energy prices out of any International Energy Agency member country in 2023, reflecting its dependence on gas and its role in setting electricity prices.
“If we do not address the issue of high industrial energy costs in the UK as a priority, we risk the security of our country,” Make UK chief executive officer Stephen Phipson said.
“We will fail to attract investment in the manufacturing sector and will rapidly enter a phase of renewed de-industrialization.”
Britain has de-industrialized — defined as the share of manufacturing in overall economic output — faster than in any other major European country over the last 30 years, according to a Reuters analysis of national accounts data.
Manufacturing hit a record low 9 percent of economic output last year, crowded out by the dominant services sector which now drives the majority of the country’s exports — a first among Group of Seven advanced economies.
Alan Johnson, a senior executive for manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing at Nissan Motor, said its Sunderland plant in the north east of England had the highest energy costs out of any of its facilities in the world.
“The proposals being put forward by Make UK ... would send a strong message to investors that the UK remains committed to creating a more competitive environment for electric vehicle manufacturing,” Johnson said.


Ukraine destroys 40 aircraft deep inside Russia ahead of peace talks in Istanbul

Updated 02 June 2025
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Ukraine destroys 40 aircraft deep inside Russia ahead of peace talks in Istanbul

  • Ukraine's President Zelensky says 117 drones were used in the attack on Russian air bases
  • 34 percent of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion, says Ukraine military

KYIV, Ukraine: A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, Ukraine’s Security Service said on Sunday, while Moscow pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones just hours before a new round of direct peace talks in Istanbul.
A military official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the far-reaching attack took more than a year and a half to execute and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Caption

In his evening address, Zelensky said that 117 drones had been used in the operation. He claimed the operation had been headquartered out of an office next to the local FSB headquarters. The FSB is the Russian intelligence and security service.
The military source said it was an “extremely complex” operation, involving the smuggling of first-person view, or FPV, drones to Russia, where they were then placed in mobile wooden houses.
“Later, drones were hidden under the roofs of these houses while already placed on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs of the houses were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers,” the source said.

Social media footage shared by Russian media appeared to show the drones rising from inside containers while other panels lay discarded on the road. One clip appeared to show men climbing onto a truck in an attempt to halt the drones.
Long-range bombers targeted
The drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, the official said. Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defenses and guided missiles.
The Security Service of Ukraine said that the operation, which it codenamed “Web”, had destroyed 34 percent of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion. The claim could not be independently verified.

Caption

Russia’s Defense Ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, which damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Ukraine, as well as the Murmansk region in the north, it said. Strikes were also repelled in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was briefed on Ukraine’s attack Russia during a stop at Nellis Air Force Base and was monitoring the situation. A senior defense official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters that the US was not given notification before the attack. The official said it represented a level of sophistication the US had not seen before.

Also on Sunday, Russia’s top investigative body said that explosions had caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, killing seven in one of the incidents and injuring dozens more. Russian officials, however, did not say what had caused the blasts and the word “explosions” was later removed from an Investigative Committee press release.
 

This video grab from a handout footage released by Russia's emergency ministry on June 1, 2025 shows specialists working at the scene after a road bridge collapsed onto a railway line in the Bryansk region late on May 31, 2025, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow. (AFP)

Attack ahead of talks
The drone attack came the same day as Zelensky said Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for a new round of direct peace talks with Russia on Monday.
In a statement on Telegram, Zelensky said that Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation. “We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people,” Zelensky said.
Ukrainian officials had previously called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the war before the meeting takes place. Moscow had said it would share its memorandum during the talks.
Russian strike hits an army unit
Russia on Sunday launched the biggest number of drones — 472 — on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s air force said.

Emergency workers remove debris from a private house that was damaged in a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, June 1, 2025. (REUTERS)

Russian forces also launched seven missiles alongside the barrage of drones, said Yuriy Ignat, head of communications for the air force. Earlier Sunday, Ukraine’s army said at least 12 Ukrainian service members were killed and more than 60 were injured in a Russian missile strike on an army training unit.
Ukrainian army commander Mykhailo Drapatyi later Sunday submitted his resignation following the attack. He was a respected commander whose leadership saw Ukraine regain land on the eastern front for the first time since Kyiv’s 2022 counteroffensive.
The training unit was located to the rear of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) active front line, where Russian reconnaissance and strike drones are able to strike. Ukraine’s forces lack troops and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets.
 


Poland on a knife’s edge as exit poll shows a near tie in presidential runoff

Updated 02 June 2025
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Poland on a knife’s edge as exit poll shows a near tie in presidential runoff

  • Runoff pitted Trzaskowski, a liberal pro-EU politician, against Karol Nawrock, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party and aligned with US conservatives

WARSAW, Poland: Exit polls in Poland’s presidential runoff on Sunday showed the two candidates in a statistical tie with the race still too close to call in the deeply divided nation. The results could set the course for the nation’s political future and its relations with the European Union.
A first exit poll showed liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski with a slight lead over conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, but two hours later an updated “late poll” showed Nawrocki winning 50.7 percent, more than Trzaskowski with 49.3 percent

Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, Civic Coalition presidential candidate, reacts as exit polls are announced on June 1, 2025. (REUTERS)

The polls have a margin of error and it was still not clear who the winner was.
Claims of victory amid uncertainty
Though the final result was still unclear with the two locked in a near dead heat, both men claimed to have won in meetings with their supporters in Warsaw.
“We won,” Trzaskowski told his supporters to chants of “Rafał, Rafał.”
“This is truly a special moment in Poland’s history. I am convinced that it will allow us to move forward and focus on the future,” Trzaskowski said. “I will be your president.”
Nawrocki, speaking to his supporters at a separate event in Warsaw, said he believed he was on track to win. “We will win and save Poland,” he said. “We must win tonight.”

The final results were expected Monday.
A divided country
The decisive presidential runoff pitted Trzaskowski, a liberal pro-EU politician, against Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party and aligned with US conservatives, including President Donald Trump.
The fact that it was so close underlined how deep the social divisions have become in Poland.
The outcome will determine whether Poland takes a more nationalist path or pivots more decisively toward liberal democratic norms. With conservative President Andrzej Duda completing his second and final term, the new president will have significant influence over whether Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government can fulfill its agenda, given the presidential power to veto laws.
“We will not allow Donald Tusk’s grip on power to be completed,” Nawrocki said.
The runoff follows a tightly contested first round of voting on May 18, in which Trzaskowski won just over 31 percent and Nawrocki nearly 30 percent, eliminating 11 other candidates.
Katarzyna Malek, a 29-year-old voter in Warsaw, cast her ballot in the first round for a left-wing candidate but went for Trzaskowski on Sunday, viewing him as more competent and more likely to pursue stronger ties with foreign partners and lower social tensions.
“I hope there will be less division, that maybe there will be more dialogue,” she said.
The campaign has highlighted stark ideological divides. Trzaskowski, 53, has promised to restore judicial independence, ease abortion restrictions and promote constructive ties with European partners. Nawrocki, 42, has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Polish values and skeptical of the EU.
Allegations against Nawrocki
Nawrocki’s candidacy has been clouded by allegations of past connections to criminal figures and participation in a violent street battle. He denies the criminal links but acknowledges having taken part in “noble” fights. The revelations have not appeared to dent his support among right-wing voters, many of whom see the allegations as politically motivated.

Conservative historian Karol Nawrocki reacts to the exit polls of the second round of Poland’s presidential election on June 1, 2025. (REUTERS)

“We managed to unite the entire patriotic camp in Poland, the entire camp of people who want a normal Poland, want a Poland without illegal migrants, a safe Poland. We managed to unite all those who want social, community security,” Nawrocki said. It was an apparent reference to those who supported far-right candidates in the first round and who supported him on Sunday.
Some of those voting for Nawrocki in Warsaw dismissed the allegations against him, saying he shouldn’t be punished for his past and that Trzaskowski has also made mistakes as mayor.
Władysława Wąsowska, an 82-year-old former history teacher, recalled instilling patriotism in her students during the communist era, when Poland was under Moscow’s influence.
“I’m a right-wing conservative. I love God, the church and the homeland,” she said, explaining that Nawrocki for her is the only patriotic choice now, and accusing Trzaskowski of serving foreign interests.
“He’s controlled by Germany,” she said. “I want a sovereign, independent, democratic Poland — and a Catholic one.”
International echoes
Amid rising security fears over Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine, both candidates support aid to Kyiv, though Nawrocki opposes NATO membership for Ukraine, while Trzaskowski supports it in the future.
Nawrocki’s campaign has echoed themes popular on the American right, including an emphasis on traditional values. His supporters feel that Trzaskowski, with his pro-EU views, would hand over control of key Polish affairs to larger European powers like France and Germany.
Many European centrists rooted for Trzaskowski, seeing in him someone who would defend democratic values under pressure from authoritarian forces across the globe.