Party earns another three years to unilaterally rule
Incumbent Polish President Andrzej Duda has been reelected to sit another five-year presidential term after winning the presidential election with a narrow lead over key rival Rafal Trzaskowski, the candidate of the opposition Civic Platform party.
Duda’s victory in the two-round presidential election will see that the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), which nominated him as a candidate, upholds absolute power for at least the next three years.
The first round of the election in late June had Duda win 43.5 percent of the vote, compared to Trzaskowski with 30.5 percent. The runoff was held this past Sunday.
At this point, the Polish National Electoral Commission has yet to process ballots from the remaining nine local electoral commissions before it can announce the election’s final results.
Nevertheless, with 99.97 percent of protocols processed, it is safe to say that Duda has effectively won the election. Ballots from 27,222 electoral districts have shown Duda win 51.21 percent of the vote as opposed to Trzaskowski with 48.79 percent.
In absolute figures, Duda’s lead translates into roughly 500,000 votes, and the number of voters in the remaining electoral districts does not exceed 200,000.
Duda’s victory means that Poland’s ruling PiS party can continue to unilaterally rule the country for at least three years until the next scheduled parliamentary elections.
PiS holds the majority in the Polish parliament’s lower house, the Sejm, enough to form a government.
