Rival marches draw thousands in Warsaw ahead of presidential vote

WARSAW (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Warsaw on Sunday to show support for candidates vying to win next week's tightly-contested presidential election in Poland that the government views as crucial to is efforts for democratic reform.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk hopes to galvanise support for his candidate, the liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, to replace the outgoing Andrzej Duda, a nationalist who has vetoed many of his efforts to reform the judiciary.

"All of Poland is looking at us. All of Europe is looking at us. The whole world is looking at us," Trzaskowski told supporters who waved red and white Polish flag and European Union flags.

Tusk swept into power in 2023 with a broad alliance of leftist and centrist parties, on a promise to undo changes made by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government that the European Union said had undermined democracy and women's and minority rights.

But Trzaskowski is struggling to secure a lead in opinion polls, after beating nationalist Karol Nawrocki by two percentage points in the first round of the election on May 18.

Nawrocki's voters, some wearing hats saying "Poland is the most important", gathered in a different part of the capital on Sunday to show support for his drive to align Poland more closely with U.S. President Donald Trump's policies.

"He is the best candidate, the most patriotic, one who can guarantee that Poland is independent and sovereign," said Jan Sulanowski, 42.

At Trzaskowski's march, the newly-elected president of Romania Nicusor Dan pledged to work closely with Tusk and Trzaskowski "to ensure Poland and the European Union remain strong".

Dan's unexpected victory in a vote on May 18 over a hard-right Trump supporter was greeted with relief in Brussels and other parts of Europe, as many were concerned that his rival George Simion would have complicated EU's efforts to tackle Russia's war in Ukraine.

(Reporting by Barbara Erling, Kuba Stężycki, Fatos Bytyci; editing by Barbara Lewis)