Poland’s presidential election will be watched all over Europe

By Vendeline von Bredow, Senior Germany correspondent, The Economist

Poland will hold a presidential election in 2025, probably in May, that is likely to decide the future of the populist-nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS). Either PiS will be “on a highway to return to power—or it will be the end of PiS as we know it”, says Andrzej Bobinski of Polityka Insight, a think-tank in Warsaw. The fate of the party founded in 2001 by Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, identical twin brothers who conquered conservative Poland, will be a bellwether for other countries in Europe where hard-right parties have recently gained increasing power and prominence.