Poland announces early election date after Kaczynski death - Summary

Warsaw - Poland's acting President Bronislaw Komorowski on Wednesday set June 20 as the date for early presidential elections to succeed former president Lech Kaczynski, who was killed with 95 other people in the country's plane disaster earlier this month.

All parties now have until Monday to notify the state election commission of their candidates. The candidates must then publicly announce their candidacy by May 6 and gather 100,000 signatures.

The deadlines left two parties pressed for time. The plane crash not only killed Kaczynski, who was expected to run for re-election, but also Jerzy Szmajdzinski, who was to be the presidential candidate for the Democratic Left Alliance.

It has been speculated that Kaczynski's twin brother Jaroslaw, the current head of the Law and Justice party, will run on his party's bill. The party is expected to announce its candidate Saturday after a meeting.

The Democratic Left Alliance, the country's third largest party, is reportedly considering two candidates, and was expected to meet Thursday to discuss its choice.

Komorowski, meanwhile, is the presidential candidate for the ruling center-right Civic Platform.

He is leading in the polls with nearly half of the votes, according to a survey of 1,000 people published Wednesday in the daily Rzeczpospolita. Jaroslaw Kaczynski was second with 26 per cent of the votes.

"Such a good result for Komorowski is surprising," analyst Jacek Kucharczyk, of the Institute of Public Affairs, told the daily. "Because you could expect that voters would want to value the opposition party, who took such a heavy loss in the (plane crash) tragedy."

The conservative Polish People's Party announced on Wednesday that its candidate would be Waldemar Pawlak, the party's head and deputy premier. The agrarian party has served in a coalition with the ruling Civic Platform party since 2007.

Pawlak said the upcoming campaign and elections would be delicate to conduct in the aftermath of the plane crash in Smolensk, Russia.

"Most important will be to conduct a political campaign in a worthy and proper manner, in this time and mood," Pawlak said.

Another candidate, Tomasz Nalecz, withdrew on Wednesday from the race, saying a "Polish-Polish war" might erupt after the crash and he wanted no part in it. Nalecz had been the candidate for the Democratic Party and the Social Democracy of Poland, two minor left- wing parties.

"The atmosphere of mourning after a big tragedy, and these great emotions could become fuel for such a war," Nalecz said. "The less political rivalry, or less candidates, the less risk there will be for such a war."

Presidential elections were originally slated for this autumn.

Under the Polish constitution, the date of the presidential elections must be announced within two weeks of the president's death. Voting must then take place within 60 days of that announcement.

A possible second round of voting was set for July 4.

Komorowski had planned an earlier announcement of the new election date, but the opposition successfully appealed to wait until Kaczynski was buried Sunday in Krakow.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/319892,poland-announces-early-election-date-after-kaczynski-death--summary.html.