Presidents & Prime Ministers
Politics since 1989. The elections and the heads of state, the parties, the transition economics, and the arguments over courts and media.
Part of Poland
12 moments in this segment.
- - May Coup. May 12-15, 1926. Piłsudski stages a military coup against the elected government. ~300 dead in three days of street fighting. Begins the Sanation regime, authoritarian government under Piłsudski's personal authority until his death in 1935.
- - Death of Piłsudski. May 12, 1935. Józef Piłsudski dies; Poland mourns. The state-funeral procession from Warsaw to Wawel becomes one of the largest mass-mourning events in 20th-century Polish history.
- - Wałęsa Elected President. December 9, 1990. Lech Wałęsa elected first directly-elected President of post-communist Poland. Serves one tumultuous five-year term (1990-1995) before losing to Aleksander Kwaśniewski.
- - Kwaśniewski Defeats Wałęsa. November 19, 1995. Aleksander Kwaśniewski (former communist) defeats Wałęsa in a runoff election. The "post-communist normalisation" of Polish politics; Solidarność weakened by infighting.
- - Kaczyński Wins Presidency. October 23, 2005. Lech Kaczyński defeats Donald Tusk for the presidency. PiS (Law and Justice) consolidates the conservative right. Kaczyński twin brothers, Lech as President, Jarosław as PM, define mid-decade Polish politics.
- - Tusk's First Term as PM. November 16, 2007. Donald Tusk becomes Prime Minister. PO (Civic Platform) rules until 2015. Pro-European technocratic government; navigated Poland through the 2008 global financial crisis without a recession.
- - Smolensk Air Disaster. April 10, 2010. Polish presidential Tu-154 crashes near Smolensk en route to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others killed. The deepest political wound of the post-1989 era.
- - Andrzej Duda Elected President. May 24, 2015. PiS-backed Andrzej Duda defeats incumbent Bronisław Komorowski in the presidential runoff. With PiS's October parliamentary majority, PiS controls all branches of government for the first time.
- - PiS Wins Outright Majority. October 25, 2015. Law and Justice (PiS) wins an absolute parliamentary majority, first since 1989. Begins 8 years of conservative-nationalist rule; reshapes the judiciary, media, abortion law.
- - Tusk Returns as PM. October 15, 2023 election; December 13, 2023 government. Donald Tusk's pro-European coalition wins parliamentary elections; PiS loses power after 8 years. Highest turnout in any Polish democratic election (74.4%).
- - Trzaskowski-Nawrocki Runoff. June 1, 2025. Karol Nawrocki (PiS-backed) defeats Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski (Tusk's ally) by 51-49 in the presidential runoff. Sets up cohabitation tensions between Tusk's government and the PiS-aligned presidency.
- - May Coup Centenary. A documentary marking a hundred years since Józef Piłsudski's armed seizure of power on 12-15 May 1926, using archival footage to weigh the crisis of the Second Republic and what the coup did to the stability of the state. The film presents itself as a research-based account of an episode still argued over.
