Poland’s Duda secures another 5 years as president: preliminary result

Warsaw: Poland Incumbent Andrzej Duda has been reelected for a second term as Polish president, according to unofficial results released Monday morning by the country's National Electoral Commission, paving the way for continued conflict between Warsaw and Brussels.

Duda's win is a victory for the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that backed him, which now has a clear path to continue controversial reforms of the rule of law, media freedom and abortion in Poland. 

After a tight race and indecisive exit polls, Duda won 51.21 percent of the vote, while his opponent, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski of the Civic Platform party, took 48.79 percent, with 99.97 percent of polling stations reporting. The electoral commission said the votes that are yet to be counted will not affect the final result.

Duda claimed victory even before the release of the preliminary results.

"Winning the presidential election with 70 percent of turnout, it's excellent news. I'm very moved,” Duda said Sunday evening at a campaign event in Pułtusk, a town north of Warsaw.

DUDA VS. TRZASKOWSKI

Incumbent Andrzej Duda has been reelected as Polish president after defeating Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, according to unofficial results published by the country's National Electoral Commission.

Trzaskowski also claimed victory on Sunday, saying: "I'm absolutely certain that nothing will beat us, because we've already won, regardless of the final result. We have managed to wake up, we have managed to create new hope."

The turnout in the runoff vote was 68.12 percent, according to the commission. The final result of the vote will be announced later Monday or on Tuesday.

Duda, 48, first won the Polish presidency five years ago as a relatively unknown member of European Parliament, after promising social programs for the country's poorest and oldest voters. This year, he built his campaign on a mix of continued generous social welfare programs leavened with a dose of protecting Poland's national and Christian values by unleashing attacks on what he called "LGBT ideology," as well as on Jews and Germans.

With Duda as head of state, PiS remains Poland's dominant political power. Only the relatively powerless Senate is narrowly in the grips of the opposition, which isn't enough to stop the party's radical reform agenda.

During the campaign, high-level PiS officials including Duda and the party's Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, widely considered Poland’s de-facto leader, hinted at their upcoming agenda.

It's likely that efforts to rein in the independent media will be high on their list. State-owned television is already a mouthpiece for the ruling party, and during the campaign Duda and other politicians complained of foreign interference when media owned by foreign companies reported critical stories.

It's also likely that the government's five-year efforts to bring Poland's courts under tighter political control will continue with renewed vigor — moves that have caused growing tensions with the European Commission and the European Parliament.

To mobilize his conservative electorate, Duda built an anti-LGBTQ campaign and proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar single-sex couples from adopting children. Kaczyński said he hopes the country's Constitutional Court, controlled by PiS, will ban abortion if a fetus is irreparably damaged.

*preliminary results*

Duda ---------------------51.2%

Trzaskowski--------------48.8%