New Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski vowed to work to ease political tensions in Poland after foiling conservative Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s audacious bid to replace his late brother in a presidential election.
Kaczynski conceded defeat late on Sunday when exit polls showed he trailed liberal Komorowski in the race to succeed his identical twin, Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash in April.
With 95.1 percent of votes counted, Komorowski had 52.63 percent, while former prime minister Kaczynski had 47.37 percent. Final results were due later yesterday.
The run-off between Komorowski, 58, and Kaczynski, 61, marked the latest chapter in a bitter power struggle.
Komorowski pledged, however, to end years of bad blood.
“Divisions are an inseparable part of democracy,” Komorowski said. “But we have work to do to ensure these divisions don’t prevent cooperation.”
Komorowski — who as speaker of parliament became acting president after the April crash — is a key ally of liberal Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Underdog Lech Kaczynski beat Tusk in a 2005 presidential race marked by mudslinging beyond that often seen in Polish politics. There was a nail-biting moment late on Sunday when partial results briefly put his twin ahead by a hair’s breadth.
Analysts said the Tusk government faces a test now that it holds all the levers of state.
The liberals have underscored that Poland was alone in the 27-nation EU in posting economic growth last year but say more needs to be done to plug holes in state coffers.
“Of course there will be no excuse not to push through reforms,” Danske Bank economist Lars Christensen told reporters.
The ballot was a gauge of strength for municipal polls this year and a general election next year.
“There’s no longer an alibi. They have 500 days to prove they are capable, that they’re an effective government. If they prove that, they’ll win the elections. If not, they’ll lose them,” Warsaw sociologist Edward Wnuk-Lipinski said. “And reforms are always tough and unpopular.”
The Polish tabloid Fakt put it bluntly in a front-page headline: “You have all the power now. Show us what you’ve got. You have a year.”
Jaroslaw Kaczynski struggled to shake off his divisive, confrontational reputation and failed to build on the outpouring of sympathy after his twin’s death.
The head of the euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS) party was his twin’s prime minister in 2006-2007 but lost a general election to Tusk and Komorowski’s Civic Platform (PO).
Thereafter, PiS counted on Lech Kaczynski, who used presidential veto powers 18 times to block PO’s laws.
With an eye on core conservatives — older, small-town or rural dwellers, in contrast with younger, urban liberals — the twins battled welfare reforms and a new privatization drive.
Lech Kaczynski was expected to seek a second five-year term in an election later this year but had trailed Komorowski in polls.
Sunday’s vote was watched closely elsewhere in the EU, which ex-communist Poland joined in 2004, because the Kaczynskis regularly clashed with other leaders. Poland takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency in the second half of next year.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s supporters have been left reeling.
One, Mariola Kupiec, placed a candle at a makeshift shrine outside Warsaw’s presidential palace in memory of Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria.
They and 94 other Poles died when their country’s presidential jet crashed on April 10 in Smolensk, Russia, as a delegation headed for a World War II commemoration.
“We’ll win next year,” Kupiec said.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski also looked ahead.
“This was a great rehearsal,” he told supporters. “We have to continue changing Poland — there are elections ahead of us, local and parliamentary. We have to continue to be mobilized, we must win.”
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