Acting president set to defeat the twin brother of the late Leah Kaczynski
An emotional and unpredictable presidential election in Poland following the death of former President Lech Kaczynski in April has almost drawn to a close. With 95.01 per cent of polling stations reporting by early Monday, Bronislaw Komorowski appears set to take office with 52.63 percent of the vote, while the twin brother of the late leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, won 47.37 percent. Final results will be announced later Monday. The close vote illustrates the political polarization in Poland: urban voters and those in the west generally support Komorowski’s Civic Platform and its agenda of economic liberalization, whereas those in rural and eastern parts of the country tend to be more religious and support the nationalist Kaczynski and his Law and Justice Party. “It is the presidential elections that tend to divide Poland in the worst way possible,” said Jaroslaw Flis, a political scientist at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. “It is divided between people who feel morally superior and people who feel intellectually superior.”