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FILE - In this Wednesday, June 17, 2009 file photo German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and the Parliament Speaker of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski pose in Berlin, Germany, in front of a piece of the wall of the shipyard of the Polish city of Gdansk in memory of the fight for freedom of the Solidarnosc movement. In results announced Saturday March 27, 2010, Poland's center-right governing party has chosen Parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski as its candidate for president, a largely ceremonial job that carries little real power but significant symbolic weight in this proud and patriotic country. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File) |
Poland's ruling party picks presidential candidate
WARSAW, Poland—Poland's center-right governing party has chosen Parliament Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski as its candidate for president, a largely ceremonial job but one with significant symbolic weight in this proud and patriotic country.
The pro-EU Civic Platform chose Komorowski over Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski in Poland's first primary, which was modeled somewhat along U.S. lines.
In results announced Saturday, Komorowski won 68.5 percent of the votes to Sikorski's 31.5. About 21,000 of the party's 46,000 members voted in recent days by ballot or by Internet.
Komorowski, a 58-year-old from an old aristocratic family and a former anti-communist dissident, came across as the more traditional choice and was especially popular among older party members.
He pledged that his goal as president would be to help this ex-communist country of 38 million modernize and catch up economically with the older, wealthier members of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004.
Poland needs someone "who helps and doesn't disturb, doesn't block this modernization process," Komorowski told party members in an apparent dig at incumbent Lech Kaczynski of the rival conservative Law and Justice party. That party has sought to purge former communists from all positions of influence, a goal critics say it pursues at the cost of economic development.
Sikorski, 47, with an Oxford education, an American wife and a British passport that he gave up only three years ago, was perceived as the less traditional choice. His support within the party was also weaker because he only joined it recently. He was defense minister in the previous government, led by the Law and Justice party.
Before the voting, Komorowski made a point of reminding voters that he was imprisoned by the communist regime for his pro-democracy activism in the 1980s even as Sikorski was studying at Oxford.
Komorowski enjoys strong support in polls and commentators say he stands a good chance of winning the election this fall. An exact date has not yet been set.
The incumbent, Kaczynski, has not said if he will run for re-election. His popularity is low and he is seen as being unduly partisan and influenced by his twin brother Jaroslaw, the head of Law and Justice. Currently, the presidency and parliament are controlled by different parties, a situation that has led to much political friction.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed hope that a victory by Komorowski would end the current tensions.
"I believe that a Bronislaw Komorowski presidency will end the war at the top. We've all had enough of this war," Tusk told party members.
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