Thaindian News

By Surender Bhutani

Warsaw, July 5 (IANS) Acting president Bronislaw Komorowski was elected as the new president of Poland after he defeated Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the final vote count Monday.

The state election commission, which announced the result after total vote count, said Komorowski, of the centre-right Civic Platform party, gained 53.01 percent of the vote. While his opponent Jaroslaw Kaczynski, of the right-wing Law and Justice party, received 46.99 percent of the vote.

Turnout reached 55.31 percent during the second round of voting Sunday which followed a first round of voting June 20, in which no candidate secured a majority.

The presidential election was preponed after President Lech Kaczynski died in an air crash April 10 in Russia. His wife Maria and 96 other top Polish officials also perished in the crash.

Kaczynski’s twin brother Jaroslaw tried to cash in on the sympathy vote to challenge Komorowski and managed to get around 36 percent in the first round. This enabled him to challenge Komorowski, who could not clear the threshold of fifty percent.

The two candidates fought a bitter election and divided the Polish nation between the Centrist forces led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the ultra-rightist forces led by Kaczynski.

The Polish Church, it seems, supported the ultra-rightist forces in the two rounds of election.

Komorowski’s election will help the ruling alliance consolidate its position, both domestically and externally, as Kaczynski has been regarded as hostile to economic reforms and Polish relations with the European Union.

DPA adds:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German president Christian Wulff both sent their congratulations, reported the Polish Press Agency. Medvedev said he wanted to improve Polish-Russian relations, while Komorowski renewed his invitation to the Russian leader to visit Poland, the agency reported.

Results showed that larger cities had mostly voted for Komorowski, a moderate politician who stressed in his campaign Poland’s need to play a stronger role in the European Union.

Smaller cities and rural areas voted largely for Kaczynski, who has more conservative social views and emphasized traditional values in his campaign.