The outgoing president in Poland, the conservative and populist Andrzej Duda, has been re-elected for a new five-year term, the Election Commission announced on Monday, according to almost complete official results. After counting 99.97% of the ballots, Andrzej Duda obtained 51.21% of the vote, against 48.79% for his pro-European and liberal rival, the mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski.
"He certainly won the election but the real success belongs to Rafal Trzaskowski and the opposition"
"The results of the last five constituencies that we are still waiting for will not change the final result of the elections," the chief of the electoral commission, Sylwester Marciniak, told reporters. The result confirms the position of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), in power since 2015. However, political scientist Kazimierz Kik, of the University of Kielce, believes that "it is a small success" of President Duda. "He certainly won the election but the real success belongs to Rafal Trzaskowski and the opposition which is regaining ground," he told AFP. "Poland is coming out of this fractured election. It will be difficult to reconnect with the Poles."
"Rafal Trzaskowski's strong result gives him the opportunity to become a key figure in the liberal opposition," political scientist Andrzej Rychard told TVN24 on private television. Duda is supported by the conservative nationalist PiS party while the mayor of Warsaw represents the main centrist opposition party Civic Platform (PO), which promised to improve relations with the European Union strained since the PiS came to power .