Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has to go into the run-off election against the liberal Rafal Trzaskowski, according to the post-election survey. According to Exit Polls, incumbent Duda came to 41.8 percent, Trzaskowski came second with 30.4 percent. Experts give Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski chances to win against Duda in the second round on July 12th.
Despite the corona crisis, there was a very high turnout. By 5:00 p.m. – four hours before the polling stations closed – almost 48 percent of those entitled to vote had cast their votes, the election commission announced. At the same time in the 2015 presidential election, the turnout was 34 percent.
A total of eleven candidates applied for the highest state office in the first round. In surveys, incumbent Duda, supported by the nationalist-conservative governing party PiS, was at the top. Experts give Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski a chance to win against Duda in the second round.
The election was also seen as a kind of referendum on the politics of the PiS, which has been the president since 2015 and has an absolute majority in parliament. A second term in Duda would underpin the party’s monopoly on power until the next parliamentary election in 2023. The President cast his vote at noon with his wife Agata Kornhauser-Duda in Kraków. He hoped for a high turnout, said the 48-year-old when voting. “In my understanding, it is a civic duty (…) to help decide in which direction Poland will develop.”
Trzaskowski chose in the center of Warsaw. “Dear people, don’t wait until the last moment, because there are long lines in front of polling stations all over Poland,” he wrote to his followers on Twitter. A victory for the opposition candidate could mean that the PiS must expect the president to exercise his veto right and stop the initiatives in almost all legislative proposals. Trzaskowski has already announced that he intends to reverse PiS’s controversial judicial reform.
Special protection regulations applied in the polling stations on Sunday. In the center of Warsaw, people with face masks stood in line in front of the polling stations because only a limited number of people were allowed in the rooms. Disinfectants were ready at the entrance, the election workers wore gloves and transparent face shields. Voters were required to make their crosses with their own pen.
Quelle: What / Dpa / Ag.
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