23rd May 2005
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Under starters orders
The dates of the parliamentary and presidential ballots have been set.
President Aleksander Kwaśniewski has announced that parliamentary elections will be held on September 25 and a presidential ballot two weeks later, amid fresh signs that the ruling left will lose both votes to the center-right and populists.
"We are announcing an autumn of elections," President Aleksander Kwaśniewski revealed after talks with the state election commission.
The announcement ends months of uncertainty about the timing of the two elections that will determine whether the largest economy among EU newcomers stays on course towards the eurozone or takes a more euroskeptic course.
Surveys show the conservative Civic Platform and rightist Law and Justice (PiS) party look set to win the parliamentary elections and form the next government although strong support for populist, anti-EU forces may cut into their majority. The ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which won 41 percent of the vote four years ago, may not even make it into parliament, according to recent opinion polls.
A center-right victory may be good news to financial markets, as the liberals have pledged to open up the economy and tackle fiscal reforms needed to bring Poland into the eurozone.
Threatening the left with a double blow, PiS's popular Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczyński leads the race to replace Kwaśniewski.
The left's chances to hold onto the presidential palace took a fresh hit just as the timing of the vote was announced as its top candidate, parliamentary speaker Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, decided not to run. A veteran leftist and former prime minister, Cimoszewicz was second in presidential opinion polls as he emerged unscathed from a string of sleaze scandals that engulfed the SLD. (Reuters)
From Warsaw Business Journal by John Todd
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