Polish vote shock could herald rise of right-wing party
WARSAW, Poland — It’s being called the biggest shock in Polish politics in years: President Bronislaw Komorowski apparently lost the first round of the country’s presidential election to a previously unknown 42-yearold member of the European Parliament.
The defeat for the communist-era dissident, who has long polled as one of the nation’s most trusted leaders, is a sign that parliamentary elections this fall could be unpredictable.
It could even signal a possible return to power for Law and Justice, the right-wing group backing Sunday’s winning presidential candidate Andrzej Duda.
It favours a more confrontational attitude to the European Union and neighbour Germany than that of the ruling Civic Platform.
A run-off in two weeks will decide the final outcome, but for now exit polls show that Komorowski took just 33 per cent of the votes compared with more than 34 per cent for Duda.
Even if the official outcome varies slightly from the exit poll, the result is undeniably a defeat for Komorowski, a centre-right leader who earlier this year was expected to easily win far above 50 per cent of the vote, avoiding a run-off altogether.
When Law and Justice ran the government, from 20052007, Poland clashed repeatedly with officials in Brussels and ties with ally Germany grew strained. The party has also been extremely critical of Russia.
Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of his twin brother, the late President Lech Kaczynski, in a 2010 plane crash. No evidence has emerged to back up his theory.
Adam Michnik, editor of the influential daily Gazeta Wyborcza, wrote of what he called the “suspicion and fear” that reigned in Poland at the time, when the government fought corruption and the influence of former communists in ways that many Poles felt amounted to excessive state intrusion.
Another commentator, Pawel Wronski, called Sunday’s apparent results “the biggest surprise in Polish politics in the last years.”
Komorowski’s poor showing reflects growing dissatisfaction with the way the country is going under Civic Platform, a businessfriendly party that has been in power since 2007.
Commentators say Komorowski has suffered from being closely identified with the party and not opposing its more unpopular proposals, such as raising the retirement age.
The strong showing in the presidential race for Pawel Kukiz, a former punk-rock musician with an anti-establishment message, was another sign Poles are disgruntled. Kukiz came third with 20 per cent of the vote after campaigning for Poland to introduce single-member constituencies to replace the current party list system, part of a larger message that the system is rotten.
Kukiz argues that choosing individual candidates rather than parties in electing lawmakers to parliament will be more transparent and give voters more influence.
The final outcome will depend a lot on where those protest votes go in the runoff, to be held May 24.
Already on Monday Komorowski signalled a desire to fight for the Kukiz voters, announcing plans for a referendum on single-mandate constituencies. He said the referendum would also include propositions on ending the funding of political parties from tax money and the protection of taxpayers in disputes with state financial authorities.