pOles voted in Sunday's first presidential election to vote for the "money-making or interruption" moment of the country's pro-European Union government, which is still trying to reverse the damage caused to the rule of law by the former populist government that was recalled two years ago.

Warsaw Mayor RafałTrzaskowski, a staunch pro-European centre from Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Citizen League (KO), was a favorite to win the election, but his lead over his conservative rival, historian Karol Nawrocki, narrowed in the final weeks of the campaign.

Since a wave of upset with the Populist Rights Law and Justice Party (PIS) in 2023, the government led by former European Council President Tusk - an eclectic coalition that spans left-to-right parties against the former government - has been struggling to follow promises to follow promises to reverse the human-made law of judicial reform and liberalization of promises.

Slow progress has frustrated some voters with the new administration, which blames the deadlock on the imminent threat of the president to veto legislation.

"This election is half the parliamentary cycle, which is tricky for candidates affiliated with the alliance, because they inevitably suffer from voters' frustration with the government," said Ben Ben, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw SWPS.

“Whether voters double down on the decisions made in 2023 or explore alternatives because they are frustrated with the pace of reforms, it remains to be seen,” he said.

The outgoing President Andrzej Duda is a close ally of the former PIS administration and a supporter of Donald Trump. He opposed the reforms carried out by the new administration and blocked some decisions, including an ambassador nomination.

Potential opposition victory will widen the current deadlock and drive years of political instability.

Nawrocki claims he received Trump's support at a White House meeting earlier this month, building close ties with the United States during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, his campaign was plagued by his purchase of an apartment from an elderly man and raised his failure to fulfill his obligation to provide care as part of the deal. He denied the charges.

In a poll published by the country before entering election silence on Friday, Trzaskowski lost to Duda in 2020, and Nawrocki is expected to enter comfortably in the first two places and land on runoff on June 1.

But to show that voters are becoming increasingly frustrated, the combined voting share of the first two candidates is expected to be the lowest since the first presidential election in 1990.

"People are very exhausted by those who have double monopoly," Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of political science at the University of Sussex, told The Guardian.

Anti-established liberal far-right leader Sławomir Mentzen is expected to rank third, although briefly challenging Nawrocki in second place.

Adrian Zandberg of the New Left's left (together) and Magdalena Biejat of the New Left are expected to compete for fourth to sixth, which is probably the highest electoral share of the left since 2010.

Polls are closed at 9pm local time (8pm BST). The new president will take office in August.