Incumbent Andrzej Duda has won the Polish presidential election by a wafer-thin margin, with 99.7% of ballots counted.
He narrowly beat pro-European liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski with 51.2% of the vote, the country’s election commission said.
Duda, an ally of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, won 51.21 percent of the votes with Trzaskowski receiving 48.79 percent, according to unofficial results by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) released on Monday morning.
Turnout for the second round of the election was reportedly 68.2%, the highest of any presidential poll since the start of free elections in post-communist Poland in 1989.
Electoral commission chiefs said that they were unsure when complete results would be announced, with some polling stations yet to submit their counts, but with over 99% of the votes accounted for, the final result was not expected to change.
Duda is backed by the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party and pushed traditional values and social spending on the campaign trail in mostly-Catholic Poland.
Declaring victory overnight on Sunday he thanked “all my compatriots who voted in this election, those who made a lot of effort to be able to cast their ballots.”
“I thank you all from the bottom of my heart because such a turnout is a beautiful reflection of our democracy,” he added.
Addressing supporters in Warsaw’s Old Town, Trzaskowski had sounded optimistic about his chances of securing the presidency on Sunday evening, telling the crowd, “We will wake up tomorrow in a completely new Poland.”
The result of the vote is significant for the Eastern European country, which has become polarised under the current government led by Duda’s allies, the Law and Justice (PiS) party, said EuroNews on Monday.
The ruling party has been praised by Poles for their social policies which have lifted many out of poverty, particularly in rural communities. But critics have accused the government of exacerbating social rifts by targeting minorities, like Jews and the LGBT community, as well as eroding democratic norms since it took power in 2015./news agencies-argumentum. al
