- Title: Gay activists fear more discrimination as Poland's Duda wins second term
- Date: 13th July 2020
- Summary: GDYNIA, POLAND (FILE - JUNE 10, 2020) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DUREX ADVERT PLAYING ON TV SCREEN, INCLUDING GAY MARRIED COUPLE JAKUB KWIECINSKI AND DAWID MYCEK AMONG HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES HEL, POLAND (FILE - JUNE 11, 2020) (REUTERS) KWIECINSKI AND MYCEK SITTING AT TABLE LOOKING AT PHONE STILL IMAGE OF KWIECINSKI AND MYCEK FROM DUREX ADVERT ON PHONE SCREEN KWIECINSKI AND MYCEK LOOKING AT PHONE
- Embargoed: 27th July 2020 15:57
- Keywords: Andrzej Duda LGBT in Poland Polish election Polish president Rafal Trzaskowski
- Location: WARSAW, GDANSK, GDYNIA AND HEL, POLAND
- City: WARSAW, GDANSK, GDYNIA AND HEL, POLAND
- Country: Poland
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA003CMN7ZUV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: For Jakub Kwiecinski and Dawid Mycek, Polish gay couple and LGBT activists, the election win of incumbent president Andrzej Duda comes with fear and disappointment.
Duda, 48, elected for a second five-year term, sought to paint himself during the election campaign as the guardian of the government's social programmes while mobilising his conservative base with attacks on LGBT (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender) activism.
In the last weeks of campaigning, Duda said that LGBT "ideology" was more dangerous than communist doctrine, and pledged to ensure public schools are banned from discussing gay rights.
To many religious conservatives in the predominantly Catholic nation, Duda's challenger centrist Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski came to represent the threats facing traditional values when he pledged to introduce education about LGBT rights in Warsaw schools.
However, many members of the LGBT community fear discrimination under a Duda presidency.
"We feel powerless," said Dawid Mycek, 35, an LGBT activist and Youtuber. "This is the first presidential campaign I know, which was based on hate, hate speech and dividing Poles," he added saying assaults on LGBT people happen more and more often and they fear that even though the campaign is over, more discrimination will follow.
"These words will return as stones ... PiS politicians triggered the machine of anti-LGBT rhetoric which they cannot control anymore," Mycek's husband, Jakub Kwiecinski said.
Nearly final results from Sunday's (July 12) presidential election run-off showed Duda on over 51%, giving him an unassailable lead over liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who won almost 49% of the votes.
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