Warsaw (AFP) - Poles voted Sunday in a tight presidential election with major implications for the country’s role in Europe, and for abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Warsaw’s liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, 53, an ally of the centrist government, faced off against nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki, 42, with polls predicting an extremely close finish.

With the runoff election coinciding with Poland’s annual children’s holiday, Trzaskowski wrote on Facebook: “May it be a really good Children’s Day. For everyone.”

Nawrocki, a lifelong boxer, said: “I will win” after voting in Warsaw.

“Poland should be strong, Poland should be independent,” he told reporters.

Polls close at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) in the EU and NATO member, which has been a key supporter of neighbouring Ukraine as it fights off a Russian invasion.

An exit poll was expected as soon as ballots close and election officials forecast that the final result will be known on Monday.

“I’m voting for Trzaskowski. He’s educated, speaks many languages, is intelligent,” said Agnieszka Lewinska, a 56-year-old cleaner in the central town of Halinow.

Warsaw pensioner Lila Chojecka, 60, said she cast her ballot for Nawrocki.

“Catholic values are important to me. I know he shares them,” she told AFP.

Turnout was 54.91 percent at 5:00 pm, a notch higher than the 52.10 at the same time in the 2020 presidential runoff.

Outgoing President Andrzej Duda – who backs Nawrocki – said after voting that he hoped whoever wins will do so “as clearly as possible”.

- ‘Particularly important’ vote -

A victory for Trzaskowski would be a major boost for the progressive agenda of the government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Council president.

It could mean significant social changes such as the introduction of civil partnerships for same-sex couples and an easing of a near-total ban on abortion.

Tusk said these elections “were particularly important” after he voted in the seaport of Sopot.

The president in Poland, a fast-growing economy of 38 million people, has the power to veto legislation and is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

A victory for Nawrocki would embolden the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, and could lead to fresh parliamentary elections.

Many Nawrocki supporters want stricter curbs on immigration and advocate for conservative values and more sovereignty for the country within the European Union.

“We should not give in to European pressure,” 40-year-old Agnieszka Prokopiuk, a homemaker, said before the vote.

“We need to make our own way,” she told AFP in the eastern city of Biala Podlaska.

- Ukraine -

Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, called the election “a real clash of civilisations” because of the wide policy differences between the candidates.

Many Trzaskowski voters support greater integration within the EU and an acceleration of social reforms.

Malgorzata Wojciechowska, a tour guide and teacher in her fifties, said Polish women “unfortunately do not have the same rights as our European friends”.

“I hope that Rafal Trzaskowski will relaunch the debate on abortion so that we can finally live in a free country,” she told AFP.

The election is being watched closely in Ukraine, which is seeking to bolster international support in its negotiations with Russia as Moscow’s invasion grinds on.

Nawrocki, an admirer of US President Donald Trump, opposes NATO membership for Kyiv and has called for curbs on benefits for the estimated one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

The election’s result is expected to hinge on whether Trzaskowski can mobilise enough supporters and whether far-right voters will cast their ballots for Nawrocki.

Far-right candidates secured more than 21 percent of the vote in the election’s first round, which Trzaskowski won by a razor-thin margin of 31 percent against 30 percent for Nawrocki.