Presidential election in Poland 2020

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Presidential election in Poland
June 28, 2020 (first ballot)
July 12, 2020 (second ballot)
	Law and justice
	Andrzej Duda
	be right	10,440,648
		51.03%
	Platforma Obywatelska
	Rafał Trzaskowski
	be right	10.018.263
		48.97%
Powiat election results
President of the Third Polish Republic
Before the election of Andrzej Duda PiS Elected Andrzej Duda PiS

Ballot from June 28, 2020

Queue in Tomaszów Mazowiecki a few minutes after the polling stations open

Ballot box

The seventh presidential election in Poland since the beginning of the Third Republic took place on June 28 and July 12, 2020. In the first ballot, the incumbent Andrzej Duda received 43.5% of the vote and missed an absolute majority. This required a runoff election on July 12, 2020 between him and his strongest challenger Rafał Trzaskowski , who received 30.5% of the vote. In the runoff election, Duda won with 51% of the vote.

Election date

The first round of the election was scheduled for May 10, 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland . Before that, the ruling party PiS held on to the planned date for a long time, but in the form of a pure postal vote.

Candidates

In addition to the incumbent President Andrzej Duda (supported by the ruling party PiS ), each of the parliamentary groups represented in the Sejm put up a candidate for election, namely Rafał Trzaskowski ( KO ), Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz ( PSL ), Robert Biedroń ( Wiosna ) and Krzysztof Bosak ( Konfederacja ). In addition, non-parliamentary or independent candidates such as Szymon Hołownia competed .

Until her retirement on May 15, 2020, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska was the KO's presidential candidate. The Warsaw city ​​president Rafał Trzaskowski then became her replacement candidate. After the reorganization of the KO, Trzaskowski quickly took second place behind incumbent Duda in surveys.

photo	Surname	Age	Education / career	Party affiliation	Election slogan	receipt
	Robert Biedroń	44	EU parliamentarians	Wiosna (also supported by SLD , Razem and PPS )	Bezpieczna Polska w Zjednoczonej Europie ("Safe Poland in United Europe")
	Krzysztof Bosak	38	Member of the Sejm	Konfederacja (also supported by RN )	Naprzód Polsko! ("Forward Poland!")
	Andrzej Duda	48	acting president	independent (supported by PiS )	Niech żyje Polska! ("Long live Poland!")	-
	Szymon Hołownia	43	Journalist, television presenter	independent	Prezydent różnych Polaków; Dość partyjniactwa; Kościół i władza na swoje miejsce; Pokolenia, never kadencja ("President of different Poles; No more parties; Church and rulers in their places; Generations, not legislatures")
	Marek Jakubiak	61	Entrepreneur	FdR
	Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz	38	Member of the Sejm	PSL (also supported by Kukiz'15 , ŚR and UED )	Nadzieja dla Polski ("Hope for Poland")
	Miroslaw Piotrowski	54	Historian, lecturer, publicist	RPE	Nowoczesny konserwatyzm; Prezydent bezpiecznego jutra ("Modern Conservatism; President of a Safe Tomorrow")
	Paweł Tanajno	44	Entrepreneur	independent (supported by DB )	Więcej wolności i suwerenności obywateli to źródło dobrobytu dla każdego i dla całego państwa ("More freedom and sovereignty of the citizens is the source of prosperity for each individual and for the entire state")
	Rafał Trzaskowski	48	Mayor of Warsaw	PO (also supported by iPL , .N and Zieloni )	Silny prezydent, wspólna Polska ("Strong President, Common Poland")
	Waldemar Witkowski	66	Chairman of the board of a housing association	UP	Człowiek ważniejszy od kapitału ("People are more important than capital")
	Stanisław Żółtek	64	Entrepreneur	KNP

Election campaign

The two most promising candidates who ultimately ran against each other in the runoff election that became necessary, Duda and Trzaskowski, represent the two main political camps into which Polish society is currently divided. Duda, candidate of the PiS and other parties of the conservative spectrum, has his supporters mainly in the south and east of Poland, especially in the countryside and in the small towns, while the supporters of Trzaskowski, candidate of the PO and the center-left camp It is concentrated mainly in the big cities and more in the west and north of Poland. The state media (radio and television) were largely under the control of the PiS government. OSCE election observers criticized the reporting of the public television broadcaster TVP , which largely functions as an election campaign vehicle for incumbent Andrzej Duda and reported very little and mostly negatively about his challenger Rafal Trzaskowski. The National Broadcasting Council KRRiT had not fulfilled its task of controlling coverage of the election campaign. The organization Reporters Without Borders also criticized the station's one-sided reporting.

Duda is considered to be a representative of traditional values ​​- family in the conservative sense and emphasis on the social role of the Catholic Church - and is rather skeptical of the EU , while Trzaskowski is an exponent of a more liberal direction. The election campaign was in part characterized by extremely coarse, insulting and defamatory language. Certain anti-German clichés were also used by Duda after he had been criticized by the tabloid fact , which is partly owned by the German Springer publishing house . Duda then accused Springer Verlag of attempting to influence the election and spoke of the “next German attack in these elections”. After newspapers had repeatedly advocated in Germany for Trzaskowski as the "better presidents of Poland," the Polish Foreign Ministry made the charge d'affaires of the German Embassy summoning and protested against "manipulation and lies" (as a later Twitter message) that appear on the democratic electoral process should be influenced.

Critics accused Duda of making homophobic remarks during the election campaign. After Trzaskowski, as Warsaw city president, had taken over the patronage for the equality parade in his city and allowed the discussion of LGBT topics in Warsaw schools, he was attacked by PiS supporters as a "gay friend". Duda declared the "LGBT ideology" to be "worse than communism" and made it clear in campaign speeches that as president he would not allow "children in elementary school to be indoctrinated with ideology and sexualization". The PiS and Duda are interpreted positively by the electorate for the welfare and social program initiated by the PiS government with significantly increased child benefits and social benefits. This has given it the reputation of being a party that cares for the needs of the "common people" and not just the "pro-western urban elites".

Result

Majorities in the first ballot according to districts ( powiat )

Majorities in the second ballot according to districts ( Powiat )

Result of the presidential election in Poland 2020

candidate	Political party	1st ballot		2nd ballot
		be right	%	be right	%
Andrzej Duda	PiS	8,450,513	43.50	10,440,648	51.03
Rafał Trzaskowski	PO	5,917,340	30.46	10.018.263	48.97
Szymon Hołownia	independent	2,693,397	13.87
Krzysztof Bosak	Konfederacja	1,317,380	6.78
Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz	PSL	459.365	2.36
Robert Biedroń	Wiosna	432.129	2.22
Stanisław Żółtek	KNP	45,419	0.23
Marek Jakubiak	FdR	33,652	0.17
Paweł Tanajno	DB	27,909	0.14
Waldemar Witkowski	UP	27,290	0.14
Miroslaw Piotrowski	RPE	21,065	0.11
total		19,425,459	100.00	20,458,911	100.00
Valid votes		19,425,459		20,458,911
Invalid votes		58,301	0.30	177.724	0.86
voter turnout		19,483,760	64.51	20,636,635	68.18
Eligible voters		30.204.792	100.00	30.268.543	100.00
Source: State Electoral Commission (Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza)

Analyzes

The turnout was comparatively high at 68.2 percent, which indicated increased political interest. The election result shows - so the tenor of the comments of several large German-speaking media - that Poland is an internally deeply divided country. The division goes right through society: West and North Poland against South and East Poland, cities against provinces, old against young. This split also existed in the last presidential election and Duda, who was elected at the time, did not manage to fill the rifts that had been opened, mainly because he was unable to step out of the shadow of his political foster father Jarosław Kaczyński . Whether Duda will be able to do so in his second term remains to be seen. However, it is to be feared that the actions of the PiS government against the judicial system and against independent private media would continue. Opponents of the PiS government expressed the fear that Poland would now “go the same way” as “Hungary or even Belarus”.

Lawsuit against the election

On July 16, 2020, the Civic Platform (PO) filed a complaint against the election result with the Polish Supreme Court . The PO called for the election to be canceled because the principles of equality and generality of the election had been violated. Duda was supported by the "entire state apparatus", which was illegal. As evidence, the PO documented complaints from 2,000 voters who reported problems with registering for the election, delayed dispatch of election documents and obstacles in casting votes abroad.

The Chamber for Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs, established as part of the controversial judicial reform , was responsible for the complaints . On August 3, 2020, she declared the election valid. A total of 5,847 election complaints were received, the highest number since the 1995 presidential election (around 600 thousand at the time). Of these, 93 complaints were considered justified, but without any impact on the election result. Unequal access of candidates to the mass media does not affect the validity of the election as long as legal and factual media pluralism is guaranteed.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Polish presidential election will now take place on June 28th. In: derStandard.at. Retrieved June 3, 2020 (Austrian German). 
2. ↑ Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza: Presidential Election The Republic of Poland 2020: Results of first round of voting. In: Państwowa Komisja Wyborczae. Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza, June 30, 2020, accessed on June 30, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Poland postpones controversial presidential election. In: tagesschau.de. Retrieved May 10, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Right- wing national PiS relies on postal votes to win. In: DER SPIEGEL. Retrieved May 10, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Robert Biedroń: poglądy, PROGRAM wyborczy i polityczny: wybory 2020. In: Słuchaj Radio ZET. May 7, 2020, accessed June 7, 2020 (Polish). 
6. ↑ Krzysztof Bosak. Program wyborczy kandydata Konfederacji. April 20, 2020, accessed June 7, 2020 (Polish). 
7. ↑ Szymon Holownia kandyduje na prezydenta. Kim jest? Retrieved June 7, 2020 . 
8. ^ Jakubiak kandydatem na prezydenta. Zebrał podpisy. March 25, 2020, accessed June 7, 2020 . 
9. ^ Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz: PROGRAM WYBORCZY I POLITYCZNY [WYBORY 2020] . In: radiozet.pl . May 6, 2020 ( radiozet.pl [accessed June 7, 2020]).
10. ↑ Jest kolejny kandydat na prezydenta. Opozycja never może go zlekceważyć. March 26, 2020, accessed June 7, 2020 . 
11. ^ Anna Piątkowska-Borek: Kim jest Paweł Tanajno, kandydat na prezydenta Polski i współorganizator protestu przedsiębiorców? May 24, 2020, accessed June 7, 2020 (Polish). 
12. ↑ Trzaskowski: Wszystko wymaga Nowej Polityki. Polska pogrążyła się w totalnym chaosie. Retrieved June 7, 2020 . 
13. ↑ Kandydaci w wyborach Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w 2020 r. Retrieved July 1, 2020 (Polish). 
14. ↑ Wybory prezydenckie 2020. Stanisław Żółtek - program, postulaty, partia. Retrieved June 7, 2020 (Polish). 
15. ^ ^{A b} Adam Easton: Duda vs Trzaskowski: The fight for Poland's future. BBC News, accessed July 12, 2020 . 
16. ↑ OSCE criticizes election reporting. tagesschau.de, June 29, 2020, accessed on July 12, 2020 . 
17. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Oliver Loew: "That is a shame and a stench": Emotions in the Polish presidential election campaign. Annotated excerpts from a speech by Andrzej Duda in the Upper Silesian province. German Poland Institute, accessed on July 12, 2020 . 
18. ^ Monika Sieradzka: Anti-German tones in the Polish election campaign. Deutsche Welle, July 10, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 . 
19. ↑ Poland's government appoints top German diplomats. Deutsche Welle, July 8, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 . 
20. ↑ Polish election: Andrzej Duda says LGBT 'ideology' worse than communism. BBC News, June 14, 2020, accessed July 12, 2020 . 
21. ↑ Official result of the 2020 presidential election State Election Commission (English)
22. ↑ Bartosz Dudek: Commentary: Elections in Poland - The rift through the country is getting deeper. Deutsche Welle, July 13, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 . 
23. ↑ Viktoria Grossmann: Poles are only united by distrust. Tagesanzeiger, July 16, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 . 
24. ↑ Opposition wants to have the presidential election declared invalid. Time online, July 16, 2020, accessed on July 16, 2020 . 
25. ↑ Szef car: Świat docenia to co osiągnęliśmy. In: rmf24.pl. August 7, 2020, accessed August 16, 2020 (Polish). 
26. ↑ Sąd Najwyższy stwierdził ważność wyboru Andrzeja Sebastiana Dudy na Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. In: sn.pl. August 3, 2020, accessed August 16, 2020 (Polish).