Poland's incumbent Duda wins presidential election
WARSAW-Reuters
Poland's incumbent Andrzej Duda has won the presidential election, results from over 99% of polling stations show, with remaining uncounted votes unlikely to sway the final outcome, the National Electoral Commission said on July 13.
Duda, an ally of Poland's ruling nationalists, is expected to help the Law and Justice (PiS) party continue its reforms of the judiciary, which have been criticised by the European Union, and generous social spending programmes.
According to the latest results, Duda received 51.21% of the vote, while opposition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski got 48.79% of the vote. The difference in votes between the candidates amounted to around 500,000.
"I don't want to speak on behalf of the campaign staff, but I think that this difference is large enough that we have to accept the result," Grzegorz Schetyna, the former head of Poland's opposition Civic Platform (PO) grouping and member of parliament told private broadcaster TVN24 on July 13.
Poles voted with almost record turnout, reported at 68.12% by the commission.
The Commission said it wasn't sure when it would announce full official results as some polling stations, including some abroad, had not yet submitted their official counts.
The opposition had earlier said it was collecting information about what it says were voting irregularities.
"We are gathering information and signals about different irregularities and we are still only talking about polls and only a percentage of results from the National Electoral Commission so we don't have a full picture of the situation," Tomasz Siemoniak, a PO member of parliament told Reuters.
PiS officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The foreign ministry was also unavailable for comment.
"Today or perhaps at the latest tomorrow...we will be able to indicate what the scale of these protests is," Sylwester Marciniak, the head of the electoral commission, told a news conference on July 13.