WARSAW—Poland's presidential challenger headed for an
election victory on Sunday night, according to a late poll, which
showed him unseating the incumbent president after a contentious
battle in the politically divided nation.
Conservative opposition candidate Andrzej Duda won 52% of the
vote, according to a poll by Ipsos pollster for television stations
TVP, TVN and Polsat. President Bronislaw Komorowski, who had
initially hoped for a comfortable re-election, won 48% in the final
runoff, the poll showed.
If confirmed by Poland's electoral authority, Mr. Duda's victory
will be the first for his conservative Law and Justice party since
2005 when it won the country's presidential and parliamentary
elections.
Mr. Komorowski immediately conceded his defeat.
"It didn't work this time," he told a rally. "Citizens of free
and democratic Poland have decided. Democracy means that election
results must be recognized and respected. I congratulate my rival
on his election and wish him success as president."
The incumbent president appeared to have lost his re-election
bid despite fervent support by the ruling center-right camp led by
the Civic Platform, of which he used to be a prominent member. Mr.
Komorowski's campaign focused heavily on celebrating Poland's
relative economic and political success since the collapse of
communism in Europe in 1989, a mood not shared by millions of
voters with wages much below European standards.
"President Komorowski has paid a price not only for himself but
also for his party colleagues," said Leszek Miller, a former prime
minister in the 2000s who leads the postcommunist Democratic Left
Alliance party.
The Civic Platform has defended its track record by citing
uninterrupted growth in Poland even during the global financial
crisis. Poland was the only country in the European Union that
didn't slip into recession in 2009. Gross domestic product has
risen by about a quarter since 2007 while the rest of Europe was
stagnant.
Still, the average net wage in Poland was $800 in March and the
country's per capita economic output is around two thirds of the EU
average. More than two million people have immigrated out of Poland
since it joined the EU in 2004 when employment restrictions were
lifted.
The conservative challenger has pledged to draft laws to give
bigger tax breaks to the least affluent and to reverse a recent
increase in retirement age, moves the incumbent president has
eventually tried to mimic despite first calling them populist.
Mr. Duda's presidency will likely introduce even more skepticism
about the adoption of the euro in Poland, the largest EU state
obliged by treaty to abandon its national currency and yet still
outside the currency area. During the election campaign, Mr. Duda
said Poland should wait with deciding whether to replace its zloty
currency with the euro once economic output is more on par with
that of the eurozone's core countries. The current Polish
government has no plan to introduce the euro anytime soon for fear
of a decrease in purchasing power.
Mr. Duda promised a bolder foreign policy stance, particularly
regarding a resurgent Russia next door. He said Poland under his
presidency would work even more aggressively to get the West to
stand up to the Kremlin and urged more military equipment from the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including permanent bases, on
Polish soil as a deterrent. He said the equipment and bases should
be moved to Poland, NATO's eastern flank since 1999, from the west
of Germany.
Mr. Duda will also likely stiffen Poland's opposition to more
ambitious carbon dioxide emission targets by the EU, a policy
pursued for years across party lines by the coal-rich country.
The new president will next year appoint a new governor of the
National Bank of Poland, which earlier this year cut its main
interest rate to 1.5%, the lowest level on record. Mr. Duda hasn't
made his preference known for the successor of Marek Belka, a
former Social Democratic prime minister of Poland, the central bank
chief since 2010.
Write to Martin Sobczyk at martin.sobczyk@wsj.com
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