Hotly contested runoff election too close to call
WARSAW, Poland — A late exit poll for Poland’s presidential runoff Sunday showed the conservative, populist incumbent, Andrzej Duda, leading over the liberal, proEurope mayor of Warsaw, but with the race still too close to call.
It appeared to be the closest election in Poland’s history, reflecting the deep divisions in the European Union nation.
The exit poll by the Ipsos institute showed Duda with 50.8% of the vote and challenger Rafal Trzaskowski with 49.2%. An earlier exit poll had showed Duda with 50.4% and Trzaskowski 49.6%. The polls had margins for error of plusorminus 1 percentage point and 2 points, respectively. Official results are not expected until Monday or Tuesday.
Long lines outside some polling stations Sunday night forced them to stay open past their official closing time of 9 p.m. for what many considered to be one of the most crucial elections in Poland’s three decades of democracy.
Duda expressed confidence that the results would confirm his victory, and he called the high turnout “a beautiful testimony of our democracy.”
Duda said the turnout was nearly 70%, which would be a record high for a presidential election in the 30 years since Poland threw off communism, embraced democracy and later gained membership in NATO and the EU.
At an election night event, Trzaskowski said he still believed the numbers could turn in his favor. He said he was still dreaming of a Poland “that knows how to rebuild a united society, that is proud of it’s tradition, that is looking to the future, that is just, European, tolerant, where no one divides us.”
Duda, who is backed by the ruling rightwing Law and Justice party and the government, campaigned on traditional values and social spending in the mostly Catholic nation as he sought a second 5year term.
As the race became tighter in recent weeks, Duda turned further to the right in search of votes. He seized on gay rights as a key theme, denouncing the LGBT rights movement as an “ideology” worse than communism. His campaign also repeatedly claimed that Trzaskowski would take welfare money from Polish families and give it to foreign Jews — something Trzaskowski never said he would do.
Trzaskowski, a former European Parliament lawmaker, jumped into the race relatively late to oppose Duda’s denigration of urban liberals, the LGBT community and other minorities and to counter an erosion of democratic rights under the ruling party. He represented the centrist opposition Civic Platform party, which was in power in from 2007 to 2015.
If Duda is reelected, the populist Law and Justice party will keep a close ally in the president and maintain its hold on almost all key instruments of power in the nation of 38 million people. A win for Trzaskowski would give him the power to veto laws passed by the ruling conservatives and give Poland a less contentious relationship with European Union officials.