Financial markets would prefer a Komorowski victory because he would be expected to work smoothly with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s economically liberal government in tackling a big budget deficit and preparing the country for eventual euro adoption.
But first-round results gave the mild-mannered candidate of Poland’s ruling pro-business Civic Platform (PO) a narrower margin of victory than many pre-election polls had suggested and he faces a stiff challenge to beat opposition leader Kaczynski.
“(Komorowski’s lead) could very well melt away in the next two weeks if Komorowski chooses complacency,” said Pawel Swieboda, head of the DemosEuropa think-tank. Results from 94 percent of the polling stations showed Komorowski won 41 percent of the vote against 37 percent for Kaczynski, a combative nationalist who is vying to replace his twin brother Lech Kaczynski, whose death in a plane crash in Russia in April triggered the election. While the prime minister holds most of the power in Poland, the president can veto laws, appoint key officials and also has a say in foreign and security policy.
Komorowski, Speaker of Parliament and acting president, shares Tusk’s vision of a Poland firmly anchored in the European mainstream, working closely with Germany and other EU partners and trying to improve long troubled ties with Russia, its communist-era overlord. Kaczynski is opposed to joining the euro any time soon and is distrustful of the EU, Russia and Germany. He has also urged stimulus packages to counter the economic slowdown but Tusk has followed more cautious policies.
Polish bond yields rose on Monday partly in response to Komorowski’s relatively narrow lead in the first round. A Kaczynski win would bring uncertainty and the risk that he would continue his brother’s habit of vetoing government bills.
Poland’s relations with Berlin, Moscow and Brussels nosedived during Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s stint as prime minister in 2006-07, when his brother Lech as president reinforced Warsaw’s image in the European arena as a difficult country to work with.
Kaczynski softened his prickly image after the death of his brother and called for cooperation across the political spectrum, but on Sunday evening he told his supporters Poland faced a stark choice in the runoff vote.
“This should be a round in which a choice will be made between two visions of politics, two visions of Poland, because there are differences... We see the country’s future differently, we see differently the path to its success.” The biggest prize for both candidates will be the support of the leftist electorate after Sunday’s surprisingly strong showing by Grzegorz Napieralski, the candidate of the former communist SLD party, who won the backing of 14 percent of Poles.
Napieralski was keeping his cards close to his chest on Monday, though analysts expect many left-leaning voters to back Komorowski, a more moderate conservative, due to their dislike of Kaczynski’s nationalism and euroskepticism.
“If there are to be any discussions (about my support), then they would be about values and not the position of a deputy prime minister,” Napieralski said in a radio interview. “Now is the time for some deliberation.” A Komorowski win next month would entrench the dominance of Polish politics by Tusk and PO but analysts have played down the chances of them pursuing radical economic reforms ahead of a 2011 parliamentary election for fear of scaring away voters.
