BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2020) Incumbent Polish President Andrzej Duda has been reelected to sit another five-year presidential term, likely to further irritate Brussels where his government is widely considered populist and perhaps too dangerously independent.
The two-round presidential election saw Duda, a candidate from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), secure 51.03 percent of the vote as opposed to Rafal Trzaskowski, his challenger from the opposition Civic Platform party, with 48.97 percent of the vote.
The outcome is strikingly similar to the presidential election of 2015, when Duda prevailed over opponent candidate Bronislaw Komorowski in a 51.55 percent - 48.45 percent vote.
WORLD LEADERS CONGRATULATE DUDA
Duda has already received congratulations from US President Donald Trump, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko and leaders of several fellow EU member states, among other foreign counterparts.
"I cordially congratulate you on your re-election as president of Poland. I wish you happiness and success in your responsible capacity," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a congratulatory note to the Polish president, released by the German government's press service.
In her letter, Merkel said that Germany and Poland were "tied by a tight partnership" and, citing the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, added that she deemed it "especially important" to continue to develop this partnership in the future.
"With the re-election of Duda, the Poles expressed their support for the conservative policies of PiS. They voted for their own nation, culture, religion and traditions and against the overarching demands of globalists in the EU," Petr Bystron, the spokesman for the Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, told Sputnik.
The politician further claimed that all major media in Poland are controlled from Germany and have "interfered in the election with one-sided reporting," namely pro-opposition candidate Trzaskowski.
"The vote is clear: the Poles do not want to be ruled from Berlin and Brussels. And that's good," Bystron said.
EUROPEAN-JOCKEYED POLISH MEDIA FAILED TO SECURE DUDA'S DEFEAT
Mainstream media in Europe largely framed Duda's narrow-margin victory as his failure to win a significant majority.
Newspapers in Germany, Austria and France have hailed the outcome as success of the opposition to get so close to Duda and what they described as his populist government.
"Contrary to what the French media imply, the Republic of Poland is a real democracy ... it is even the last bastion in Europe of freedom of opinion. And the whole point of this Polish presidential election was there: how long will this last bastion hold?" journalist Patrick Edery told Sputnik.
"In France, the press likes to describe PiS as an 'ultra-conservative' or even 'national-conservative' party. In fact, it's a pure Gaullist party," he added.
As put by Edery, "Andrzej Duda has everything to displease the French media."
The journalist referred to the Polish president being a practicing Catholic, never depriving himself of denouncing the excesses of the LGBT ideology and claiming that media in Poland were free as opposed to those in other countries.
"Living in Poland for twenty years, I can guarantee you that this is the truth. The media in Poland are free and pluralistic," Edery said.
BRUSSELS NOT HAPPY WITH POLAND'S INDEPENDENT ECONOMIC SUCCESS
As acknowledged by many officials and media, Poland has been doing more than well economically speaking over the past several years. One source even compared the unprecedented success to that of France when it was led by Charles de Gaulle. On most of standard economic indicators, Poland is in the upper tier among the 27 EU member states.
Yet, the successes of a right-leaning government in Poland were apparently not particularly welcome in Brussels.
Since 2017, the European Commission initiated four infringement procedures over a Polish legislation that Brussels believes threatens the independence of judges in Poland.
In February, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a law amending the legislation on common courts and the Supreme Court in a way to empower politicians to fine and fire judges, including for criticizing the president. It has triggered a backlash in Brussels, where the new law was taken as a threat to the rule of law in Poland in violation of EU democratic standards.
The European Commission has repeatedly warned the Polish government about its readiness to invoke Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would suspend Poland's membership rights in the European Union, such as voting in the European Council.
Such a prospect, however, is going to need a unanimous vote by all 27 member states and, given internal intricacies of the European politics, several states are most likely to never accept punishing Warsaw that way.
On the backdrop, Poland has repeatedly demonstrated loyalty to NATO, apparently seeking protection against a perceived threat from the eastern neighbors. This, among other things, contributed to Warsaw's rapprochement with the United States.
When Germany and the US clashed over NATO expenditures last year, Washington threatened to move its garrisons to Poland should Berlin not increase its spending for the alliance.
Additionally, Poland has built a reception terminal for liquefied natural gas to import it from the US and decrease imports of piped gas from neighboring Russia, something that Washington has eagerly sought for several years now.
