Poland votes in neck-and-neck presidential election

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/poland-votes-in-neck-and-neck-presidential-election

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Poland has been voting in the final round of a closer-than-expected presidential election between the conservative incumbent, Bronisław Komorowski, and an even more conservative challenger.

Komorowski, 62, has been a popular president for five years and was expected to cruise back into office. But he narrowly lost in the first round of voting to Andrzej Duda, a little-known 43-year-old lawyer and member of the European parliament with the Law and Justice party, who waged an energetic campaign.

Polls in recent days have shown Sunday’s race as being too close to call. Duda’s strong showing in a first round on 10 May, which helped force a runoff, has exposed a rising disillusionment with the long-ruling Civic Platform party, which Komorowski is allied with. The party has governed Poland since 2007 and has faced a string of corruption scandals. Its fortunes have also fallen somewhat with the departure of its former charismatic leader and prime minister, Donald Tusk, who is now the EU president.

The first round had a large protest vote for a rock star and political analysts say a majority of those votes will probably go to Duda. On the other hand, many people who did not vote then are expected to cast their ballot this time, with many of those votes expected to go to Komorowski.

The president has limited powers, but the election is being closely watched as a sign for how Civic Platform and Law and Justice will fare in the more significant parliamentary election later this year.

Although both parties are conservative, Civic Platform has a more liberal stance on issues such as IVF and is more pro-European than Law and Justice, which has a nationalistic streak and has demanded more sovereignty from Brussels. Duda has called for higher taxes on banks and large supermarket chains, which are mainly foreign-owned. He also said he wants Poland to retake control of the banks.

The Polish currency, the złoty, weakened in the final days of the campaign. Exit polls will be published when polling stations close at 9pm (2000 BST), but final results are not expected until Monday at the earliest.