Poland elects their new president for the next five years tomorrow. Second round of voting. Two candidates remain out of the original eleven. Polls suggest they are neck and neck.
Latest predictions say they literally sit at 50% each. I feel genuinely sad for my Polish friends in Poland, as there seems to be no ideal candidate, so a lot of them have resigned themselves to voting for a ‘lesser evil’ tomorrow.
In the red corner (although the colour is largely irrelevant here, as they are both, curiously, broadly speaking right wing candidates), the incumbent, Andrzej Duda, who has the support of the government. His views are openly and proudly, yes proudly, nationalistic, strongly Catholic, anti-LGBT+, anti-abortion in any circumstances, anti-EU, mainly because of Germany’s strong role in the Union, climate change ‘sceptic’. You get the gist.
He is loved by millions who benefited from the government’s generous welfare packages of the last few years.
In the blue corner, the opposition golden boy, who had joined the race rather late in the day, which gave his campaign a feel of being a little bit rushed and unclear, Rafał Trzaskowski.
His past employment history boasts the positions of the mayor of Warsaw, and the Euro MP. He is fluent in English (has a degree in English) and not bad in a few other European languages, a YouTube soundbite showcasing his drop dead sexy Spanish accent is meant to seduce undecided voters.
Not as completely different from his opponent as the social media would make you believe, and definitely not as left wing as the truly liberal electorate would wish him to be, but compared to Duda, he can be called a progressive candidate.
A lesser evil in the eyes of many.
I will keep you posted on what happened next.
Ania Heasley 