Prezydent Duck, not Prezydent Tusk

Despite all pre-election polls to the contrary, it looks as though Lech Kaczynski will be the new president of Poland. Rzeczpospolita has an interesting breakdown of voting, showing for whom voters for Tusk and Kaczynski in the second round voted in the first round. SLD and other "lefty" candidates' supporters voted for Tusk, which is interesting, given his much more pro-market attitude. Perhaps Kaczynski's victory is best described as a populist one. He gained the votes of the rather embarassing Samoobrona and probably of those who would have supported a League of Polish Families (God-Honour-Fatherland and possibly skinheads) candidate. The other stats on this page are men/women(męczyzni/kobiety), age/wiek, education/wykształcenie (primary, basic vocational, secondary, students and higher) and by place of residence (village/countryside or various sizes of town). Let's hope that his policies are not determined by the factors which did sadly seem to govern his election campaign. The poster in the picture says "A strong president - an honest Poland". Someone commented that what we really want is an honest president and a strong Poland.

The BBC, Reuters, FT.