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Democracy News
Poland Elects New President Following National Tragedy
July 8, 2010
By: Randi Zung | Printer Friendly
After a first round of voting on June 20, results indicated that Poland’s presidential election was a race between acting President Bronislaw Komorowski and Jaroslaw Kaczyński, the twin brother of late President Lech Kaczyński. Since both leading candidates failed to gain a majority of the vote, a second round of voting took place on July 4. Komorowski and Kaczyński, the frontrunners from the start, ran on opposing political platforms. Komorowski, who was speaker of the lower house of Parliament prior to the presidential plane crash in April 2010, is known as a pro-European Union (EU) moderate. The New York Times reported that during his campaign, Komorowski pledged to work with the government to adopt the euro within the next 5 years. In contrast, Kaczynski is a social conservative that is skeptical of further EU integration. During the global economic financial crisis, Poland was the only EU member country not to enter a long recession.
According to exit polls after the first round of voting, Komorowski was ahead with 46% of the vote. Kaczyński was reported to have received 33% of the vote. Despite admitting defeat after viewing the results of the exit poll, Kaczyński took the lead after several conservative cities and towns reported their ballots during the night. However, after results from major cities began to pour in, Komorowski came out ahead, BBC News reported.
On July 4, official results of the second round of voting showed that Komorowski was the winner of the presidential election. According to official totals, Komorowski won with 53.01% of the vote. His challenger, Kaczyński, received 46.99% of the vote. Following the announcement, Komorowski stated, “Democracy has won. Our own Polish democracy has won,” the Economist reported.
The Warsaw Business Journal reported that a polling station in Gdańsk found 163 marked counterfeit ballot sheets during the runoff’s ballot counting. Described by Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz Regional Prosecution boss Witold Niesiołowski as clearly counterfeit, the falsified ballots were reported to the local District Electoral Commission and are currently being investigated.
In April 2010, Poland’s presidential aircraft crashed while en route to Russia when the plane attempted to land during a thick fog. All the plane’s passengers, including then-President Lech Kaczyński, were killed during the crash. Other victims of the crash included the president’s wife, high-ranking government officials, leaders from every branch of the military, and prominent leaders in the Solidarity movement.
For previous news on Poland, please see:
http://ccd21.org/news/europe/poland_plane_crash.html
Sources:
Warsaw Business Journal - Polish presidential election: 163 fake ballot papers found in Gdańsk ballot box
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