Conservative to win Polish presidential run-off: poll

Conservative challenger Andrzej Duda appeared poised to win Poland’s Sunday presidential run-off against incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski, according to a survey released Thursday.

Duda, who has been campaigning on bread-and-butter issues like lowering the retirement age, has the support of 48 percent of voters, according to a poll by the independent Warsaw-based CBOS institute.

While Komorowski, who focused on defence as well as pocketbook matters, got the backing of 44 percent of people surveyed between May 14-20.

However, a separate poll conducted on May 18 by the Millward Brown pollsters and published Tuesday showed Komorowski winning with 47 percent of the vote compared to 44 percent for Duda.

The 62-year-old Komorowski was stunned by his narrow first round election loss to Duda, a 43-year-old populist candidate from the main conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, lead by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Komorowski, who has been president since 2010 and is close to the governing centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, scored 33.8 percent of the vote against Duda’s 34.8 percent.

With the PO and PiS still running neck-and-neck in parliamentary opinion polls, analysts say the outcome of the presidential battle may well be a harbinger of things to come in an autumn parliamentary election.

Analysts predict that victory for Duda could pave the way to a PiS victory, with the party leader Kaczynski as prime minister.

The twin brother of former President Lech Kaczynski who died in a 2010 plane crash in Russia, served as prime minister in 2006-2007 in a conflict-ridden, unpopular right-wing coalition government.

He has kept a low profile during the presidential campaign.