Poland spent 3.8 percent of its GDP on military expenditure in 2023, according to World Bank data. “Some expected a wave of support for the left or liberal side, especially among young people.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Poland has a new president - far-right historian and amateur boxer Karol Nawrocki. He won by around a single percentage point in an election where voter turnout was high.

It was a razor-thin win, 50.9 per cent of the vote to 49.1 per cent. But the conservative nationalist Karol Nawrocki’s victory in Poland’s presidential runoff election on Sunday is a huge blow ...

But the election in Poland highlights a broader struggle faced by Europe, particularly in the formerly communist East. Battles have raged over divisive issues like migration, abortion and L.G.B.T ...

The strongest Right areas are in southeast Poland, along the Ukrainian border, which were in pre-1914 Austria, the only one of those multi-ethnic empires with a Catholic monarch.