POLAND: The presidential race between Poland's centre-right allies turned rivals is expected to be a close run thing

Record ID: 858679

  • Title: POLAND: The presidential race between Poland's centre-right allies turned rivals is expected to be a close run thing
  • Date: 7th October 2005
  • Summary: WIDE VIEW OF "LAW AND JUSTICE" CONVENTION, KACZYNSKI WALKING ON STAGE CROWD CLAPPING, WAVING BANNERS WIDE VIEW OF CROWD, ZOOM IN TO KACZYNSKI ON STAGE
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • City:
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADSEISPAWA5L4PIJA5EYTN6CY2
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  • Story Text: The presidential race between Poland's centre-right allies turned rivals is so close three days before voting that it will most likely require a second round to settle, latest surveys showed on Thursday (October 6). The once commanding lead of frontrunner Donald Tusk, a pro-business moderate, over tough-talking conservative Lech Kaczynski has narrowed to around 5 percentage points in the last two weeks, according to a survey by the CBOS polling centre.
    One poll gave Tusk just a one point lead, another showed he was still leading with nine points. All surveys made clear, however, that neither he nor Kaczynski is likely to win outright, forcing a run-off on Oct. 23 and prolonging financial markets' uncertainty about the future of reforms in the European Union newcomer. The presidential election follows parliamentary polls two weeks ago, which produced a clear swing to the right after four years of scandal-tainted leftist rule. Regardless of whether Tusk or Kaczynski wins the presidential race, it will cement the hold on power by their parties, heirs of the pro-democracy Solidarity movement that toppled communism in 1989.
    The presidential race has become a two-man show after the withdrawal of Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, former prime minister and one of few ruling leftists still trusted by Poles. None of the remaining 10 candidates seems able to threaten the frontrunners.
    The increasingly hostile fight between Tusk and Kaczynski, who only two weeks ago were exchanging courtesies, has unsettled the financial markets because it has hampered coalition-building by their Civic Platform and Law and Justice parties. Kaczynski's Law and Justice attacked Tusk as a free-market zealot who cares only about the rich -- continuing the conservatives' tactic that hurt the Civic Platform's ratings before parliamentary polls. The conservative candidate for prime minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, admitted on Thursday that the cabinet-line up and details of the program could be finalized only after the second round of the presidential Tusk, 48, went on counter-offensive in the last days of the campaign, branding Kaczynski, 56, as an intolerant rightist who could isolate Poland internationally.
    Kaczynski and his party have irked Poland's neighbors Germany and Russia with scathing remarks about them. They also stirred controversy in Brussels by talking about limiting gay rights and reintroducing the death penalty-long-held views that are likely to appeal to religious voters in the predominately Catholic country of 38 million. Sociologists say fear of Kaczynski's radicalism may drive centre-left and liberal voters to Tusk in the second round. Surveys give him a 4-8 point lead in such a run-off.
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