President

Václav Havel, for what is sure, had generally no great respect towards authorities, certainly not for the bureaucratic authorities of the \"very real socialism\" that ruled over in his homeland.

The socially liberal camp around the world, including much of the European liberals, have been celebrating this turning of the tides, even though it comes at a cost of further polarisation of the society in the US and elsewhere.

Joe Biden\'s victory at U.S. presidential elections is not something all sides to the Estonian government welcome. This is a shame because Estonia\'s relationship with the United States has never nor should it depend on who is president in America, Marko Mihkelson writes.

Poland’s incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, a nationalist and conservative, topped the first round of the presidential election on June 28 with 43.5%. However, on July 12 he will go up with his liberal challenger, Rafał Trzaskowski, Mayor of Warsaw, who got 30.5% in the first round. Numerous polls suggest that the race is too close to call.

The popular Warsaw mayor, Trzaskowski did not join the election campaign until mid-May, but he set the tone from the beginning. The 48-year-old politician of the opposition Civic Platform (PO) and former European Minister is a feared opponent of the PiS.

The forthcoming presidential election in Poland, scheduled for June 28, will be decisive for the future direction of our country. Poles are faced with the choice between the final consolidation of anti-democratic rule, or a glimmer of hope for the future.

During one of his campaign speeches, the current president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, who runs for re-election, compared promoting “LGBT ideology” to something worse than communism. This statement has led to a spiral of hatred.

The presidential election in Poland, which was cancelled at short notice in May, will now take place on June 28. The new opposition candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, is now positioning himself as the strongest challenger to incumbent Andrzej Duda.

The delayed elections give the opposition a small but significant window of opportunity to make known the responsibilities of the office of president - to make often tricky decisions for the good of the nation. President Duda has already shown to be Kaczynski\'s president, not the people’s president.

The restructuring of the state in a latently authoritarian direction is being pushed even further. The government’s worrying trend is particularly evident in the way it is trying to instrumentalize the COVID-19 crisis for the upcoming presidential elections on May 10.