Last laps of the presidential race
If this result were repeated next weekend the two would be forced to meet in the second round and, according to polls, Tusk would come out victorious from that clash by 53 percent to 47 percent.
Another poll, published on Wednesday and carried out by the research group OBOP, also puts Tusk ahead of Kaczyński, with 41 percent of the voters likely to go for PO's candidate compared to 32 percent support for the Warsaw mayor.
Those polls, conducted after PIS' victory in the parliamentary elections, still show Tusk ahead in the race for the Presidential Palace, however, they indicated that Lech Kaczyński has narrowed the gap compared to earlier surveys.
A previous PBS survey, published three days before the parliamentary elections, showed Tusk 12 percentage points ahead, while OBOP's poll from a week before the elections gave Tusk a huge 20 percentage point advantage and put him just below the 50-percent mark. The mid-September polls showed an even greater gap, suggesting Tusk would romp home and win the presidential race in the first round.
The fall in support for Tusk could be the result of the intensive campaign by PiS to show the parliamentary elections as a choice between a 'social' Poland and a 'liberal' Poland.
This gave Law and Justice a last-minute victory and it seems that the party will continue this policy in the presidential race. When PiS was celebrating its victory last Sunday, Lech Kaczyński said: "Poles will face the same choice when casting presidential ballots. The choice between liberal a Poland and a Poland of social solidarity."
This rhetoric is aimed at gathering the votes of ex-supporters of Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, as well as of other candidates from parties not supportive of PO's liberal program.
However, while Law and Justice's social program might draw some leftist voters to Kaczyński, the Warsaw mayor still remains a 'hate-figure' for the left side of the Polish political scene because of his anti-communist, conservative values and his promises to introduce a 'Fourth Republic'.
Therefore, the majority of leftist voters are expected to go to Tusk, who is seen as a moderate with a broader appeal, in the second round of the presidential elections. Also, PiS' victory in the parliamentary elections created a situation where it might be possible that the Kaczyński brothers would take the two most important posts in the country. It is claimed that the winning party's decision to chose Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as its candidate for Prime Minister was made to avoid hampering Lech Kaczyński's chances for the presidency and to ease many voters' fears of the twins running the country, which would incline them to vote for Tusk, thereby guaranteeing a balance of power.
