Populist President Wins Re-election In Poland

Warsaw, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Jul, 2020 ) :Polish President Andrzej Duda has squeezed past his europhile rival to win re-election, official results showed on Monday, but the narrow victory puts the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party government on the backfoot.

A close ally of US President Donald Trump, Duda has vowed to tighten already highly restrictive laws against abortion and has campaigned against "LGBT ideology".

The incumbent won a new five-year term with 51 percent in Sunday's vote against 49 percent for Warsaw's liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who had promised to mend ties with the European Union.

Experts said the result means the governing party, which has been criticised at home and abroad for controversial reforms of the judiciary seen as eroding democratic freedoms, will face a more confident opposition.

"Despite Trzaskowski's defeat, his strong performance looks like a new beginning, a new dynamic for the opposition," Andrzej Rychard, a political scientist at Warsaw University, told local media.

"We're on the cusp of some very significant changes on the Polish political scene," he said, adding that "Trzaskowski appears poised to lead the opposition".