Liberal, conservative to fight it out for Polish presidency

WARSAW (AFP) - Polish voters confirmed their shift to the right as they handed Donald Tusk of the centre-right Civic Platform party a lead over his main rival for the presidency, Warsaw's conservative mayor Lech Kaczynski, in an election.

But neither Tusk nor Kaczynski, whom exit polls credited with around 38.5 percent and 33 percent respectively, had enough votes to claim victory in the first round of the election, exit polls showed.

The two will have to fight it out to succeed centre-left President Aleksander Kwasniewski in a run-off on October 23.

"This victory gives us hope for the second round," Tusk told jubilant PO activists in Warsaw after the exit polls showed him to have a five-point lead on Kaczynski.

"I hope that the next two weeks will be a period of great, positive energy," he added.

Kaczynski said he was confident he would bridge the gap between himself and Tusk to win in the second round because "my vision of a united Poland is more attractive to most Poles than the liberal vision" of Tusk and PO.

Ten other candidates were in the running for the presidency, but all finished far behind the two leaders.

The closest was Andrzej Lepper of the Samoobrona (Self-Defence) party with around 13 percent of the vote, according to the exit polls.

Under half the 30 million eligible voters in the new European Union member state -- 49.82 percent -- turned out to vote, according to the exit polls.

Although low, the figure was a marked improvement on turnout for legislative elections two weeks ago, when less than 40 percent of Poland's electorate cast ballots -- the lowest participation in a national election since the end of communism in 1989.

"When there aren't any fish in the sea, a crawfish can pass off for a fish," said former Polish president and Nobel laureate Lech Walesa, citing an old Polish saying, after casting his vote in Gdansk.

"I tried to choose as wisely as I could, given the line-up, which was not to my liking. Still, if you can't get what you want, you make do with what you have," the outspoken Walesa said.

Tusk presented himself as young, dynamic, and an able negotiator at the head of the business-friendly party he founded in 2001 and still leads.

He has the support of much of the business community and those who hope to see the high jobless rate of 17.7 percent come down decisively.

Kaczynski, of the conservative Catholic Law and Justice (PiS) party, based his campaign on his experience and a career unblemished by corruption, the blight which tarnished the outgoing centre-left government and caused Poles to vote it out of office.

The 56-year-old, who co-founded PiS with his twin brother Jaroslaw in 2001, told reporters after voting in Warsaw: "If I am elected, I would like to go to the Vatican for my first official trip, because the majority of Poles are Catholics."

His second official trip would be to the United States, said Kaczynski, who wants to further strengthen ties with the Americans.

Warsaw is already a staunch military ally of Washington, leading a multinational force in the US-led coalition in Iraq, and the United States is home to six million expatriate Poles.

The Polish president is less powerful than the prime minister, but is supreme commander of the armed forces and in charge of foreign policy decisions.

The parties of the two men are in talks to form a coalition to rule Poland, after PiS finished first in the legislative election, in front of PO.

But PO's Jan Rokita, who has been selected to become deputy prime minister when the coalition is formed, said Sunday the new government would not be named until after the presidential run-off.

Do you feel that one of these men is better for Poland than the other?

It seems to me that when Tusk and Kaczynski together get over 70 percent of the vote, this is a strong affirmation. If the new coalition government succeeds in further energizing the economy while strenghtening social values, it will set a good example for the rest of Europe.

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