Eurosceptic Andrzej Duda Will Become New Polish President, Signaling Conservative, Populist Shift

International Business Times ^ | May 24 2015 | Angelo Young

[annalex]

Poland is getting a new and more conservative president. Andrzej Duda, 43, won the European Union member’s presidential runoff election Sunday by an unofficial 6 percentage-point margin, Agence France-Presse reported.

"I congratulate my competitor Andrzej Duda and wish him a successful presidency," President Bronisław Komorowski was quoted by the Associated Press as saying in a concession speech late Sunday in Warsaw. A TVP public broadcaster exit poll indicated Duda was comfortably ahead at 53 percent to Komorowski’s 47 percent.

[Cowboy Bob]

Nice looking daughter..

[annalex]

Links work at source

Andrzej Sebastian Duda ( Polish pronunciation (help·info)) (born 16 May 1972) is the President-elect of Poland.^[1] He is a lawyer and a Member of the European Parliament.^[2] He was the official candidate of the Law and Justice party for the office of President of Poland in the 2015 Polish presidential elections.^[3] He won the presidential run-off held on May 24th 2015 against incumbent Bronisław Komorowski.

He comes from Kraków, the son of Janina Milewska and Jan Tadeusz Duda, professors at AGH University. His wife, Agata Kornhauser, is a German teacher at Jan III Sobieski High School, Kraków.^[4] His father-in-law is Julian Kornhauser, a well-known Polish-Jewish writer, translator and literary critic.^[5]

He studied law at the Jagiellonian University. In October 2001 he has been appointed as an assistant professor in Administrative Law Department of Jagiellonian University. In January 2005 he obtained the PhD in law at the same university.

He began his political career with the now-defunct Freedom Union Party in the early 2000s, but after the parliamentary elections in 2005, began his collaboration with the Law and Justice Party.^[6] In 2010, he was an unsuccessful candidate to become the local President of Kraków as a PiS candidate,^[7], but was more successful in the 2011 parliamentary election, where he received 79,981 votes for the Kraków area, and thus became an envoy to the Sejm.^[8] However, he did not sit out the term, becoming elected in 2014 as a member of the European Parliament.^[9]

In the first round of the presidential election, he came first, receiving 5,179,092 votes and thus 34.76% of valid votes.^[10] In the second round he took 51.55% of the vote against the 48.45% share of his rival, incumbent president Bronisław Komorowski.^[11]

He has appeared in a 2011 documentary film Mgła about the 2010 Smoleńsk crash.

In 2008, he received the Portuguese Order of Merit.^[12]

[Olog-hai]

Nobody that gets elected to Europarl is a true so-called “euro-skeptic”. That goes for UKIP also.

[annalex]

It appears that while Hungary and the Czech Republic -- the two countries that should have known better -- developed sympathies toward the Putin regime that offend the sense of hygiene, Poland has moved in the right direction following the aggression against Ukraine. God bless the great and long-suffering country of Poland.

*** If you want to be on this right wing, monarchy, paleolibertarianism and nationalism ping list, but are not, please let me know. If you are on it and want to be off, also let me know. This ping list is not used for Catholic-Protestant debates.

[annalex]

Still better than the alternative. The democratic process delivers candidates chosen primarily by the media mafia, so a stealth conservative is the only conservative with a fighting chance.

Also, note, an educated man.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Monday has been declared and “O Duda Day”!
Freegards
LEX

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

That is great news to hear. Thanks for this thread!

[Jack Hydrazine]

What’s a Euroskeptic? Is that the opposite of a Euro-peon?

[Olog-hai]

In a nominal sense, yes. They talk up political separation from the EU but still work within its system, not to mention still impose its system on their own countries.

[Olog-hai]

There is not a real alternative between lighter shades of the same thing. The only difference is moving slightly slower towards the same end.

Of course, if we were not already subverted by the communistic UN-pushing types even before the end of WWII, we could have provided a genuine alternative.

[annalex]

At this point, the people in East-central Europe are not ready to simply leave the EU. Even the Greeks are not ready. An openly anti-EU candidate anywhere will be blocked by the media. The best that can be done is to form a movement toward greater sovereignty and toward cultural conservatism (where Orban of Hungary, despite his tolerance of Putin, is an asset).

[annalex]

Very good news.

[1rudeboy]

Orban is an “asset?” If he pulled half the crap he pulled here, you’d be screaming that he’s just like Obama.

[annalex]

Yes, I think that Orban is building sovereign Hungary despite the liberal interventionist pressure from EU:

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Speech at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp

What did he "pull" that upset you?

[SunkenCiv]

IMHO Duda is a redistributionist of the old school (”populist” my ass) and will cozy up to Putin, IOW, he’ll be a disaster.

By conservative, this is what the media means:

Andrzej Duda slammed Bronislaw Komorowski for acknowledging Polish farmers’ massacre of Jewish neighbors in Jedwabne
http://www.timesofisrael.com/after-exit-poll-polish-president-concedes-defeat-to-rival/

Andrzej Duda wins after criticizing outgoing president for recognizing Polish complicity in murder of Jews
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/195793

At debate, Polish president defends apologies for country’s Holocaust complicity
http://www.jta.org/2015/05/22/news-opinion/world/at-presidential-debate-polish-president-apologizes-for-holocaust-complicity

[PoloSec]

The Poles do display wisdom in picking leaders, would that we could do the same once again.

We Can... CRUZ 2016!

[annalex]

Pro life Catholic and Polish nationalist is what he is. The kind that routinely gets defamed by the media for anti-Semitism. Interesting that a Jewish father-in-law, “Julian Kornhauser, a well-known Polish-Jewish writer, translator and literary critic” apparently is not losing any sleep over this.

[annalex]

The historical experience of Poland is such that they know something about existential threats that we in America don’t. Hence the wisdom.

[Olog-hai]

Being friendlier with Putin is certainly the most likely definition of “Euro-skeptic” in this context.

It does make me wonder if, by contrast, pro-EU opponents of Putin will eventually be labeled “Eurasia-skeptic”, since Putin basically runs what he calls the Eurasian Union?