Exit polls show upset victory for Poland`s Kaczynski :: Charter'97 :: News

Warsaw - Unofficial exit polls in Poland`s presidential elections Sunday hailed a victory for right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) candidate Lech Kaczynski who scored nearly 54 per cent over liberal rival and leader of the Civic Platform (PO) Donald Tusk, with 46 or 47 per cent.

Until Friday, two days before the election, Tusk was ahead in most polling, and a victory by Kaczynski, who is mayor of Warsaw, would be considered a political upset.

The balloting was a runoff election between the two top candidates from presidential elections on October 9. Exit polls were conducted by two separate polling groups.

Kaczynski apparently captured small towns and poorer and rural eastern regions of the country, and had strong backing from Catholic nationalist groups, according to a GfK Polonia poll.

Tusk, age 48, took urban areas and relatively wealthier western provinces as was the case two weeks ago when he narrowly won the first round of voting with an official result of 36.3 per cent over Kaczynski`s 33.1 per cent.

In September, Kaczynski`s identical twin brother Jaroslaw led their Law and Justice Party (PiS) to a narrow victory over Tusk`s PO. Next week, the two parties are to form a majority coalition government, effectively controlled by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

`I want to call on our friends from the PO for us to quickly complete the work on forming a new government,` Lech Kaczynski said in Warsaw upon news of his apparent victory. His words sent supporters at the victory party wildly chanting the name of twin Jarolsaw, who is seen as having engineered Lech`s success.

Should the unofficial Sunday presidential result be confirmed, it would mean the 56-year-old brothers - nicknamed Kaczory (the ducks ) - will effectively hold a monopoly on governmental power for the next four years and presidential power for the next five years.

The development could pose a serious threat to the health of the country`s democracy, some analysts have warned.

Conservative PiS Prime Minister-designate Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has promised to sign a coalition agreement with Tusk`s free-market friendly PO by next Friday.

With Poland`s jobless rate hovering at 18 per cent - the highest in the 25-member E.U. - social security has been a key issue in both the presidential campaign and September 25 parliamentary elections.

The Kaczynskis campaigned on populist promises of generous social spending to protect Poles who have slipped through the cracks of 16 years of free-market reforms. They promised a right-wing revolution to clean-up post-communist-era crime and corruption by creating a so-called `Fourth Republic` to replace the existing Third Republic they believe is spoilt beyond repair.

The Warsaw mayor, known for his radical nationalism, has also vowed to carry on a `hard` and `strong` foreign policy towards Germany, its European Union neighbour and top trading partner. He intends to block plans by Germany and Russia to build a Baltic Sea natural gas pipeline that would bypass Poland.

Insisting the PiS was not a party of `Russophobes`, he has also warned he would not `tolerate` Russia regarding its former Soviet-era satellite Poland `with disdain` in the international arena.

On the E.U. front, Kaczynski has spoken out against the bloc`s adopting a common foreign policy, but instead supports an ad hoc, multilateral approach to initiatives along its eastern border with Ukraine, Belarus and the tiny Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

He also backs continued strong ties with the United States and has declared his first trip abroad would be to Washington D.C., if not the Vatican.

It was unclear whether both he and the future PiS-led government would stick to the commitment of the outgoing ex-communist government of Prime Minister Marek Belka to withdraw more than 1,000 Polish troops from Iraq by the year`s end.

Analysts believe support from the combative, populist leader of the Samoobrona (Self Defence) farmers` party, Andrzej Lepper, helped Kaczynski prevail in Sunday`s runoff. Lepper garnered 15.11 per cent of the vote in the October 9 ballot.

Kaczynski also enjoyed the backing of the Catholic-nationalist Radio Maryja, closely allied to the right-wing League of Polish Families (LPR), which commanded nearly 8 per cent support in the September parliamentary election.

The radio station, run by Redemptorist priest Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, is known for anti-Semitic and xenophobic programming, and has a strong influence among rural and elderly voters. Poland`s Roman Catholic hierarchy, however, shuns the operation.

Unofficial turn-out tallies showed high voter apathy with only 50.62 per cent of the 30 million eligible voters turning up at the ballot box, according to TVN 24.

Sunday`s unofficial exit polls were compiled by the GfK Polonia independent public opinion research agency for Poland`s commercial TVN 24 news channel, and by TSN OBOP for the public TVP1.

The election was the fourth presidential ballot since the fall of communism in 1989. Leader of the legendary anti-communist Solidarity trade union Lech Walesa won the first fully democratic ballot in 1990, but lost to reformed communist Aleksander Kwasniewski in 1995.

He went on to win a second term in the subsequent 2000 election and was prevented by the constitution from seeking a third term this year.

Poland`s State Election Commission (PKW) is expected to present full official results Monday afternoon.