“The decision to support Rafał Trzaskowski is deeply surprising; it represents a departure from the ideals that have united the Polish countryside for generations (…) Reflect on whether the path you are being offered today is truly the one Wincenty Witos would have chosen,” former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki urges voters and supporters of the Polish People’s Party (PSL). He has also issued an appeal directly to them.
It took just one night for the Supreme Executive Committee of the Polish People’s Party to reach a unanimous decision to endorse Rafał Trzaskowski in the second round of the presidential election. The PSL’s coalition partner, Szymon Hołownia, had received a mere 4.99 percent of the vote in the first round.
Soon after the decision, Trzaskowski and Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz held a joint press conference—significantly, at the monument of Wincenty Witos in Warsaw’s Three Crosses Square. It was there that the PSL leader formally declared his support for Trzaskowski.
Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki responded to the decision with a statement on social media addressed to PSL voters and sympathizers.
“The heart of the Polish countryside has always beaten in rhythm with the values embodied by Wincenty Witos. ‘We shall not abandon the land of our forefathers’—these words remind us that the strength of the PSL lies in its defence of tradition, family, and Polish identity. The decision to support Rafał Trzaskowski is profoundly bewildering and marks a break with the ideals that have long unified rural Poland,” he wrote, adding that the PSL represents people of hard work, faith, and patriotism.
he wrote, adding that the PSL represents people of hard work, faith, and patriotism.
“Reflect carefully—would the path being proposed to you today truly be the one chosen by Wincenty Witos? Would Wincenty Witos, a great Pole and a great Polish patriot, vote the way the PSL leadership now suggests you should?”
Morawiecki asks.
“The future of Poland belongs to all of us—on June 1st, let us choose wisely, faithful to our common roots! Faithful to the Christian values which Mr. R. Trzaskowski, a staunch liberal, so aggressively opposes. Only Karol Nawrocki can serve as the guardian of the fundamental values from which the peasant movement was born,”
he concluded.