Youthful conservatism
Voters long scared of the far right have grown bored of the centre
SINCE coming to power in 2007, Poland’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) party has notched up an unbroken string of victories in national elections. Voters unsettled by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party’s erratic performance in power from 2005 to 2007 apparently deemed it unelectable. That equation changed on May 24th, with the upset win of Andrzej Duda, the 43-year-old PiS candidate, in Poland’s presidential contest. His defeat of the incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski by 51.5% to 48.5% points to widespread fatigue with PO. With a general election due this autumn, the question is whether Mr Duda won because of his own strengths as a candidate—or whether Polish voters are shifting from the centre to the right.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Youthful conservatism”
From the May 30th 2015 edition
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