The first round of Poland’s snap presidential elections to elect a successor to Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash, will be held on June 20, the parliament’s press service announced yesterday.
“The president of the Diet [lower house of parliament] Bronislaw Komorowski has taken the decision to call elections for the president of the republic of Poland on June 20,” it said in a statement.
Under Polish law, a possible run-off second round would be held on July 4.
Parliamentary speaker Komorowski has been acting president since Kaczynski and his wife were killed along with 94 others when the presidential jet crashed on April 10 near Smolensk, western Russia.
The presidential delegation was on its way to ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of a Soviet World War II massacre of Polish officers in the nearby Katyn forest.
The late president and his wife were buried on Sunday in Krakow’s Wawel castle cathedral, the ancient seat of Polish kings.
A presidential ballot had been due by October with Komorowski, a liberal, expected to run and win in the first round against the conservative Kaczynski, whose popularity has flagged since his 2005 victory.
Komorowski was legally bound to announce an ballot date within two weeks of the president’s death on April 10. Under the constitution the snap presidential ballot must be held within 60 days of the election announcement.
Kaczynski’s identical twin brother Jaroslaw, who was premier from 2006-7 in tandem with his presidency, may take his sibling’s place, although he has made no public statement on his political plans since the crash.
His opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party is to meet on Saturday to decide on a presidential candidate. Political parties are bound under the constitution to present their presidential candidates to the state elections commission by Monday.
As of yesterday, only Bronislaw Komorowski, the candidature for Poland’s governing Civic Platform party, was clear.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS