Donald Tusk and Lech Kaczynski will contest a second round in the presidential election in two weeks time.
Another late swing to Kaczynski (PiS) sees him within two percent of the leading candidate for president, Donald Tusk.
Turnout was up by ten percent on the parliamentary elections two weeks ago.
The third and forth placed candidates polled better that expected, with Andrzej Lepper and Marek Borowski polling 15 and 10 percent.
The question now is: who will get those votes, Tusk or Kaczynski (nickname, the duck)?
The majority of the votes for Lepper - according to TVN 24 - may go to Kaczynski, and most of Borowski's will go to Tusk.
I went along earlier with girlfriend, Ania, and the dog, to ballot station 175 - which, in another life, is the local school. As the dog and myself were ineligible to vote, we waited outside in the sunshine and watched a few, mainly young, people go in to put a cross beside the name of one of the 12 candidates.
The election official said that a steady trickle of people had turned out to vote. It just after lunchtime.
Ania voted for Tusk. She is Tusk’s core voter. Born in Warsaw, mid-thirties, university graduate, marketing manager in a TV company, thinks she pays to much tax. Secular. Thinks Kaczynski is old-fashioned. Thinks Tusk is a decent guy, and might reduce her taxes.
At 4.00 p.m. 35% had voted – that’s eight percent more than at the same time in the parliamentary election two weeks ago.
In a joint interview on TVP public television after the exit poll was announced at 8 p.m., Tusk gave some advise to Kaczynski: ‘It’s time to give up, man!’ But the race is now much closer than the opinion polls had indicated before Sunday's vote.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Tusk leads duck
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6 comments:
Thank you stefanmichnik for adding to my education about Polish politics! But the opinion polls in Poland are made the same way as everywhere else...and this time they appear to have underestimated Kaczynski's vote by around two percent...within the three percent margin of era beuilt in to all such surveys.
But Stefan...you tell us why Tusk is being compared to the current president...I would be very interested to hear your views...
Whatever Stefan, you're bonafide crazy.
Now on to serious business, I just hope Poland doesn't end up with a President nicknamed Duck. Sure, it beats Turd Blossom, but still not what I want. Unfortunately that looks to be the outcome of all this, once again we Poles have decided to take the somewhat easier route instead of doing what must be done.
Does either Kaczor or Tusk speak English? I always felt that was Kwasniewski's big plus, that he could actually communicate with foreign leaders, even though what real power does a President in Poland really have?
Kwasniewski's other big plus was that he could hold his weight with Yeltsin when it came to drinking Vodka, unfortunately Yeltsin outweighed him.
I should actually write that out in my own blog...
I suppose Stefan Michnik is not your real name...that's the brother of Adam, isn't it? And I don't suppose you like those sort of people very much, so you? I have heard this thing about opinion polls being part of the political system, and not something that simply reports it...but this IS a conspiracy theory, 'Stefan'...I know Piotr Kwaitkowski - the head of PENTOR, and I promise you that this guy is a bonafide sociologist and a decent guy you uses the best scientific methods for the polls he does. But you are right, these polls consistantly underestimate the size of supprt for Kaczynski...I think this is a technical error (the conservatives in UK are similarly underrepresented.
Bialynia! I think Trd Blossom sounds a great name for a king or queen in Britain! and yes, you should write that out in your own blog!
I'd say there's partially a mismatch between opinion polls and actual voters. Duck voters are more likely to actually get their asses to a polling station, while Tusk voters are more likely to think they're too smart and worldly to do something mundane like miss part of a free day by voting.
There are other issues in campaigning as well. Kaczynski may only have negative charisma but it's better than none, which is what Tusk has. And electioneering is inherently a how-low-will-you-go sort of game that PiS takes to more naturally (and with more gusto) than does PO.
My working assumption is that Kaczynski's going to win (barring unforseen events, the momentum's all on their side right now) and then everyone will regret it when he starts on his planned campaign of score-settling and petty paybacks.
The momentum thing is everything, for sure. But there was a poll yesterday which again gave the figure for the second round: Tusk 55, Kacz 45...the same as two weeks ago. But who knows - and opinion polls are not showing the proper figures for Kaczor.
One thing about opinion polls - about 30 years ago they did a study (in UK) that asked people what they thought of the 'Metalic Metals ACT 1949, and should it be repealed? 60 percent gave an answer...and of course, the Metalic Metals Act was a fiction.
So people tell pollsters what they want to hear...and maybe people are thinking that pollsters would rather hear that Tusk will win than Kaczynski.
I think it's a safe bet that most Lepper votes will go to the Duck and Borowski, Bochniarz and Korwin-Mikke votes will mostly go to Tusk (I'm not sure about Kalinowski votes. That gives each candidate just short of 50 % (I think I haven't bothered to add up the official tallies).
I think the whole thing'll hinge on turnout, the lower the turnout the better for the Duck. Now factor in election fatigue and the fact that Polish people tend toward mulish behavior when pushed or nagged and I'm predicting very low turnout and a small Duck victory. (Unless something dramatic happens).
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