Warsaw---The knives are out in Poland's presidential campaign as incumbent centrist Bronislaw Komorowski risks losing the May 24 run-off to conservative challenger Andrzej Duda, possibly setting the tone for this autumn's parliamentary election.
The 62-year-old Komorowski was stunned by his narrow first round election loss to Duda, a 43-year-old populist candidate from the main conservative opposition party Law and Justice (PiS).
Komorowski, who has been president since 2010 and is close to the governing centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, scored 33.8 percent of the vote against Duda's 34.8 percent.
Now both candidates are attempting to woo voters who stayed away from the ballot box during the initial round, as well as those who backed anti-establishment rock musician Pawel Kukiz.
A political novice running on an anti-system message, Kukiz burst from nowhere to finish third with a 20.8 percent first round score, getting support from young and disillusioned voters.
Now, with the PO and PiS still running neck-and-neck in opinion polls ahead of the final, analysts say the outcome of the presidential battle may well be a harbinger of things to come in the parliamentary ballot.
- Enough is enough -
Despite staging a campaign widely perceived as floundering, Komorowski got a major lift Sunday when Polish analysts scored him winner of a nationally televised debate with Duda.
"Komorowski - Duda 1 to 0," read the front page of Monday's popular centre-left Gazeta Wyborcza daily, echoing the general media consensus.
A broadly smiling lawyer with a penchant for wading into crowds of average Poles with his sleeves rolled up, Duda has focused on bread-and-butter issues including reducing the retirement age and launching generous social spending plans.
He has meantime accused the mellow Komorowski of being out of touch with the people, and of having been coached by whispering aides before making comments during voter meet-and-greets.
AFP
