Moderates making up ground
Backing for Poland's opposition center-right liberals is further increasing two weeks ahead of the general election.
A survey by PBS for the Gazeta Wyborcza daily put support for the moderate, pro-business Civic Platform (PO) at 38 percent, a jump of 11 points in two weeks and a solid 15 point advantage over the next party, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS).
The ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), battered by a series of highly embarrassing sleaze scandals over recent months, was left trailing behind on 11 percent, followed by faltering anti-Western populists on the left and right.
"This might be the turning point," said Paweł Grzelak, a political analyst with the Polish Academy of Science. "The compass needle is pointing clearly towards the liberals."
Support for once-buoyant populist parties has fallen sharply recently, cheering financial markets who hope a liberal-led government would quickly bring the biggest new European Union member into the eurozone.
Analysts say the liberals owe their gains to their leader, Donald Tusk, a moderate former activist in Poland's Solidarity movement that toppled communism in 1989.
Regarded as youthful and handsome, Tusk has overcome his dour image to claim the center stage in the parallel contest to replace leftist President Aleksander Kwaniewski in elections two weeks after parliamentary polls on September 25.
Analysts say Tusk's and his liberals' moderate image is luring many Poles, weary of radicals on the right and left, along with their calls for a sharp change of course after 15 years of economic reforms.
Four years ago, moderate voters backed the ruling SLD, a party formed by ex-communists, but abandoned the group in droves as it became entangled in sleaze scandals and enacted a series of ill-prepared reforms once in power.
"There is demand for a moderate party in Poland, a party of stability that would not bring revolutionary change," sociologist Kazimierz Kik said.
"In the context of the left's disgrace, centrist, moderate voters pick the liberals."
According to projections, the Civic Platform could control as many as 210 seats in the 460-member lower house, making them a dominant player in the likely coalition with Law and Justice. The two parties have long said they want to rule together but only a month ago it was the eurosceptical conservatives who looked poised to come first in the election and take charge of the next government. (Reuters)
