Far-right voters may hold the key to whether Poland’s president Andrzej Duda can secure a second five-year term in Sunday’s (July 12) runoff. Supporters of the Confederation party — a motley group of free marketeers, anti-Semites, and ultra-conservative anti-feminists — only have two choices in the second round of the presidential vote. Neither of them Confederation leader Krzysztof Bosak, who won nearly 7% of the vote in the first round in late June. Instead they must choose between Duda, a staunch Catholic with a left-leaning economic agenda, and the mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski, who wants a more market-based economy but is also more pro-European. This voter describes himself as a “devout person,” so though he went for Bosak first time round, attracted by his promise to cut taxes, on Sunday, he’s going for Duda. Far-right voters share Duda’s belief Poland is under attack from a liberal West that wants to force it to embrace “alien” ideas — like LGBT rights — and to destroy its Catholic identity. But some are unhappy with his alliance with the ruling Law and Justice party and its generous welfare programs. Bosak won 6.81% of votes in a parliamentary election last year, one of the best results of a far-right group in Poland since Communism fell in 1989, riding an anti-establishment feeling among the young. Bosak has avoided telling his supporters who to back in the runoff.
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World News from Reuters
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Polish far-right voters may hold key to runoff
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