Warsaw mayor poised to win presidential run-off

TOUGH-TALKING Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski led Poland’s presidential run-off last night after a campaign in which he stressed traditional Catholic values and the need for a social safety net.

An exit poll for Polish public television showed him leading with 52.8% to 47.2% over pro-market legislator Donald Tusk.

An exit poll for TVN24 private television showed Mr Kaczynski with 53.5% and Tusk with 46.5%. Partial returns were not expected for several hours, and full results sometime today.

“There would have been no victory without those who supported me in the campaign,” he told cheering supporters at the city’s Soviet-era Palace of Culture.

Mr Tusk last night conceded he had lost. “Today I must tell myself I did not make it,” Mr Tusk told supporters.

Both candidates are right of centre, but Mr Tusk is more oriented toward market economics and favours a flat tax. Mr Kaczynski wants tax cuts, but prefers the system under which high earners pay more and proposes tax breaks for those with large families

If elected Mr Kaczynski would become half of an extraordinary power team at the head of Polish politics with his twin brother, Jaroslaw, who heads their Law and Justice party, which won parliamentary elections September 25.

The two brothers, both former activists in the Solidarity trade union movement, won fame as child stars in a hit film, Two Who Stole The Moon. But their resemblance became a political handicap, pushing Jaroslaw to abandon his claim to be prime minister in favour of party official Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

Even with Jaroslaw working behind the scenes, the brothers will set much of Poland’s political agenda. They have promised to fight political corruption, purge former communists from positions of influence and preserve social welfare benefits for the less fortunate.