Polish President Duda wins election, new battles with EU loom
Send a link to a friend
[July 13, 2020]
By Joanna Plucinska and Marcin Goclowski
WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Andrzej
Duda has won five more years in power on a deeply conservative platform
after a closely fought election that is likely to deepen the country's
isolation in the European Union.
Nearly final results from Sunday's presidential election put him on more
than 51%, giving him an unassailable lead over Warsaw mayor Rafal
Trzaskowski, who won almost 49% of the votes, the National Election
Commission said.
Duda is allied with the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party,
and his victory will give the government a new mandate to pursue reforms
of the judiciary and media which the executive European Commission says
subvert democratic standards.
"I don't want to speak on behalf of the campaign staff, but I think that
this difference is large enough that we have to accept the result,"
Grzegorz Schetyna, the former head of the opposition Civic Platform
grouping that fielded Trzaskowski.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2020/Jul/13/images/ads/current/castlemanor_sda_FINANCIAL_2017.png)
Backed by PiS, Duda ran an acrimonious campaign, laced with homophobic
language, attacks on private media and accusations that Trzaskowski
serve foreign interests instead of Poland's. Trzaskowski dismissed the
accusations.
Duda's victory opens the way to new clashes between Poland and the
European Commission as the EU tries to deal with the economic fallout of
the COVID-19 pandemic and rising nationalism across the 27-member bloc.
Before PiS and Duda came to power in 2015, Poland had one of the most
pro-European administrations in the bloc's ex-communist east. But it has
become increasingly combative, with divisions focusing on climate change
and migration, in addition to democratic norms.
ENEMIES
Warsaw mayor since 2018, Trzaskowski had said he would seek a more
tolerant Poland if elected. He has criticised PiS' rhetoric, vowing to
abolish state news channel TVP Info, which critics say gave overt
support to Duda in its programming.
But to many religious conservatives in Poland, a predominantly Catholic
nation, he came to represent the threats facing traditional values when
he pledged to introduce education about LGBT rights in the city's
schools.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Aug/26/images/ads/current/directory_buttons.png)
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/071320pics/news_o29.jpg)
Polish President and presidential candidate of the Law and Justice (PiS)
party Andrzej Duda speaks after the announcement of the first exit
poll results on the second round of the presidential election in
Pultusk, Poland, July 12, 2020. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
"It's what populists do very effectively. You name the enemy and you
focus on combating him. This is what was used in this campaign, the
fear of others," Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist at
the Warsaw University.
In the last week of campaigning, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski
accused Trzaskowski of being at the centre of attempts to allow
minorities to "terrorise" the rest of society.
Economic policy was also at the heart of the election, with Duda
painting himself as a guardian of generous PiS welfare programmes
that have transformed life for many poorer Poles since the party
came to power in 2015.
PiS now faces the prospect of three years of uninterrupted rule with
the next parliamentary election scheduled for 2023.
Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro suggested late on Sunday the party
could push on quickly with its conservative agenda following the
vote, and with its ambition to spur change in private media
ownership towards outlets more favourable to its ambitions.
"We need to take care of the issue of values more than before," he
told state broadcaster TVP. "There is also the matter of an
imbalance among the media."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2020/Jul/13/images/ads/current/graue_20ENCOREGX_070620.png)
Some observers say Trzaskowski's strong showing could energise the
opposition, which has struggled until now to formulate a cohesive
narrative in the face of the PiS success in winning over many Poles
with its economic and social agenda.
(Writing by Justyna Pawlak; editing by Timothy Heritage)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |