Voting is under way in Poland’s presidential runoff, which pits the populist incumbent, Andrzej Duda, against the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski. The outcome will have a huge bearing on the country’s future political trajectory, and polls suggest the result could go either way.
Duda is allied to the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), and a win for him will give PiS control of most of the levers of power for several more years, allowing it to continue an agenda that has eroded the rule of law and judicial independence, putting Poland on a collision course with the EU.
Duda’s campaign has been laced with homophobic rhetoric, as he turned the fight against so-called “LGBT ideology” into one of his main talking points.
If Trzaskowski wins, he would be able to use the presidential veto to stymie the PiS legislative agenda, as well as portray a more liberal and pro-EU face of Poland to the outside world.
The two 48-year-olds emerged from a first-round field of 11 candidates, all of them male. Duda won 43.5% of the vote while Trzaskowski got 30.5%, but the challenger is expected to win more votes that originally went to other candidates, potentially leading to a tight run-off. Most recent polls have put the two within a percentage point of each other, well within the margin of error.
The race is so close that small margins could be decisive. There have been concerns that many Poles living abroad have not been able to vote because postal ballots arrived too late. In the first round, Trzaskowski won 48.1% of votes cast by Poles abroad, while Duda won 20.9%.
Trzaskowski has claimed this is the last chance to reverse the democratic backsliding that has taken place during the last five years of PiS government. “It’s now or never,” he said earlier this week. The ruling party will either “continue to destroy independent institutions, further try to politicise courts, destroy local governments and threaten the freedom of the media, or we will have a democratic state where the president restores the balance”, he said.
Duda has portrayed himself as a president who has improved the country’s economy as well as one who would defend “family values” at the expense of LGBT rights. PiS has combined rightwing social and cultural policies with increased state disbursal of money in recent years, which has proved a winning combination in small towns and villages.
“This election will decide Poland’s development in the future, whether it will continue on the path to development,” Duda said earlier this week.
The election was meant to take place in May, when Duda was riding high in the polls and was expected to win easily. However, with coronavirus restrictions in place, plans for a fully postal vote were abandoned by the government a few days before the election as impossible to implement. Instead, a new date was set in late June.
Poland has had 37,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and 1,600 deaths, but restrictions have been largely eased in recent weeks, with bars and restaurants reopening. Voters will have to wear masks and gloves and maintain social distancing.
The prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said this week coronavirus was “retreating” and urged everyone to vote, with people over 60 told they can vote without queueing.
source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/12/poland-presidential-election-too-close-to-call-voting-begins-andrzej-duda-rafa-trzaskowski
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