Incumbent seen winning first round of Polish presidential election: study

The study, commissioned by the Super Express tabloid, found that 21 percent would vote for former Prime Minister Donald Tusk if the first round of elections was held on Sunday.

In third place was Robert Biedroń, the left-leaning, high-profile mayor of Słupsk in northern Poland, backed by 17 percent, according to the survey by researcher Instytut Badań Pollster.

A spokeswoman for Poland’s governing conservatives has claimed that Tusk is unlikely to join Poland’s 2020 presidential race because he is afraid of losing to Duda.

Beata Mazurek’s comments came after Tusk, a top European Union official, in a media interview challenged Poland’s powerful conservative leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, to run for head of state.

Kaczyński, who leads Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, earlier this month named Duda as the grouping’s probable choice to contend for the presidency in 2020.

Tusk was the prime minister of Poland from 2007 until 2014, when he resigned to become head of the European Council, a key European Union leadership position.

According to an earlier study by Instytut Badań Pollster, Duda would beat Tusk in the second round of a presidential election if both entered the race.

In total, 52.5 percent of those surveyed in June said they would vote for Duda, who has been Poland's president since 2015, while 47.5 percent said they would support Tusk.

(pk/gs)

Source: PAP