WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland will hold a presidential election on June 20 following the death of Lech Kaczynski and opinion polls show acting President Bronislaw Komorowski will win it comfortably.
Komorowski automatically took the helm on Kaczynski’s death in his capacity as speaker of parliament, number two in the state hierarchy. He is also the presidential candidate of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling Civic Platform (PO).
“Today at 5.40 am (0340 GMT) speaker Komorowski signed all the documents, hence setting the date of the election for June 20,” Komorowski’s spokesman, Jerzy Smolinski, told Reuters.
Kaczynski, his wife Maria and 94 other, mostly senior, military and political officials were killed in a plane crash in Russia on April 10.
A slew of opinion polls this week have shown the gently spoken, moustachioed Komorowski, 57, will trounce his rivals for the presidency, a mainly ceremonial post which includes key veto powers over legislation and a say in foreign policy.
Kaczynski’s twin brother Jaroslaw, 60, a former prime minister who heads the main opposition Law and Justice party (PiS), is expected to decide by Saturday whether to run. Analysts believe he would struggle to translate an upsurge of sympathy for his family after the crash into enough votes.
A TNS OBOP poll, conducted on April 19 among 1,000 respondents, gave Komorowski 55 percent of support against 32 percent for Jaroslaw Kaczynski, if the latter decided to run.
