Polish President Karol Nawrocki at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, on March 28, 2026. GABRIELA PASSOS / AP
"What I want is to make Warsaw like Budapest." First spoken in 2011 following Viktor Orban's rise to power, and repeated since as a mantra by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the national-conservative Polish party PiS (Law and Justice), the remark became famous for encapsulating his party's political vision along the Vistula River. During its eight years in government, from 2015 to 2023, PiS methodically sought to replicate the illiberal Hungarian model – from generous welfare policies to visible violations of the rule of law, leading to endless clashes with Brussels, as well as the oligarchization and endemic corruption that plagued the state and the economy.
"It'll be Warsaw in Budapest, after all!" quipped Warsaw's liberal mayor and two-time unsuccessful presidential candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, in his congratulatory message to Hungary's new prime minister, Péter Magyar. As soon as the results were announced on Sunday, April 12, leaders of the centrist Civic Coalition government, locked in a bitter cohabitation with PiS's representative, President Karol Nawrocki, took the opportunity to jab at their opponents. "Once again, I ask: which Polish interests did President Nawrocki serve by supporting the most corrupt and most pro-Putin politician in the European Union during his campaign?" questioned Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on X (formerly Twitter).
