WARSAW – Poland's acting president, Bronislaw Komorowski, could win outright in the first round of the June presidential election, beating the twin brother of the president, who was killed in a plane crash, a poll showed.
Fifty-two percent of Poles support Komorowski, the parliamentary speaker and a close ally of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, according to a PBS DGA poll published by the Gazeta Wyborcza Wednesday.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose brother Lech Kaczynski perished along with 95 others in the crash in Russia on April 10, can count on the support of 27 percent of the electorate, the poll found. Thirty-four percent of Poles back his right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS).
Poles are due to vote for a new president on June 20. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent, a second round would be held two weeks later on July 4.
Komorowski, a member of Tusk's centrist, pro-euro Civic Platform (PO), has led in all polls conducted since the crash, but the Gazeta Wyborcza survey, conducted on a sample of 1,024 people, was the first to show he could avoid a second round.
Although the prime minister and his government hold most of the power in Poland, the president can veto laws and also has a say in foreign and security policy.
A separate survey published Wednesday in the Rzeczpospolita daily showed Komorowski winning 46 percent of votes in the first round and Kaczynski 26 percent.
The poll, conducted by GfK on April 22-26 among 1,000 people, also showed Kaczynski's eurosceptic party PiS, Poland's main opposition party, narrowing the gap with PO.
Support for PiS rose 8 percentage points in two weeks to 32 percent, but still lagged PO, which had 43 percent, it showed.
Poland will hold a parliamentary election next year.
PO has remained at least 10 percentage points ahead of PiS in most opinion surveys since the crash, despite an upsurge of sympathy for Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his party.
The number of Poles who had trust in Jaroslaw Kaczynski has jumped by 13 percentage points to 42 percent since March, though he is still behind the list's leader, Komorowski, on 65 percent, a survey by the CBOS agency showed Wednesday.
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