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bne July 2020 Central Europe I 33
Poland's Duda says LGBT ideology "more destructive" than Communism
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Poland’s incumbent President Andrzej Duda said on June 13 that the Polish LGBT rights movement peddles an “ideology” that is “more destructive” than Communism.
Duda spoke in the southwestern town
of Brzeg at a campaign rally, part of his touring of Poland to secure reelection in the presidential vote due on June 28. His was calculated to pander to the core of his electorate – the conservative Catholic Poles – but appears risky in the context of building support with the moderates, whose votes the president needs to win.
“There are attempts to convince us that [LGBT] are people but this is simply an ideology,” Duda said.
“My parents’ generation didn’t fight the communist ideology for 40 years to ... now allow another, even more destructive, ideology to come,” the president added.
The conservative electorate can only give Duda around 35%-40% of the vote. In Poland’s presidential elections, the winner must scoop at least 50% plus one vote to win either in the first round or in the run- off between the two strongest contenders.
Duda has long led the polls at an average of just over 40%, based on poll results. That points to the run-off vote – scheduled for July 12 – against the president’s main rival, the centrist mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski, polling at an average of nearly 29%.
The president is a staunch ally of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which
leads the coalition government of the United Right. The coalition needs Duda’s victory to continue to govern effectively,
stands to lose if Trzaskowski manages to consolidate the wide opposition electorate in July.
Duda’s campaign could also falter because the PiS-led government’s handling of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and the resulting economic crisis will reflect on the president.
Poland has lifted most of the anti- coronavirus restrictions in the past few weeks. Poland and Sweden are the
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join forces to hunt for innovations in rest of the world
Ukraine-born startups raised more than half a billion dollars in 2019 Russian video streaming platforms gain speed
Cloud services take off in Russia SEMrush to SEO success
Leaders
Russia’s internet giant Yandex announces growing and more diversified revenues in 2019 Russian telecom major Rostelecom misses on earnings in 4Q19, cash flow solid
Investment
the
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5 6 8
9
10 12
13
Russia’s top retail and tech companies
join forces to hunt for innovations in
the rest of the world
BAs Russia’s retail and tech sectors consolidate, the leading companies are turned their gaze outwards to hunt for
World Bank approves $35mn project
to modernise Kyrgyz tax administration and statistical system 13 Romanian online home decoration
retailer raises €3.5mn in bonds 14 Russian billionaires Abramovich, Gutseriev, said to invest in Telegram
crypto project TON 14 Russian fund Da Vinci Capital gets
€30mn from Germany’s DEG to invest
in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 15
Fintech & E-commerce 16
Russian e-commerce major
Wildberries to add self-employed
vendor products to offering 16 Russian Dixy retailer to launch online sales with Ozon 17 Valuation of Sistema’s e-commerce
asset Ozon boosted to $1.8bn 17
Telecom 19
Makedonski Telekom’s net profit
up 6% y/y in 2019 19 Romanian telco Digi grows by double
digit rates in 2019 19 Russia could postpone 5G rollout
from 2022 to 2024 20
NIBs 21
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new technology and innovation.
See page 2
Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019
In 2019, the venture capital and private equity funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544mn (up from $323mn in 2018 and $265mn in 2017), says AVentures Capital’s latest industry report ”DealBook of Ukraine”,
reports Adrien Henni of Ukraine Digital News. See page 4
“There are attempts to convince us that [LGBT] are people but this is simply an ideology”
as it does not have a majority in the parliament to overturn presidential vetoes, were it to face an opposition president.
But the run-off may turn out to be tricky for the incumbent. Polls suggest only a single-digit percentage point gap between Duda and Trzaskowski, ranging from 0.2pp to 7pp. That is by no means a safe margin for Duda who
only EU countries where the number of infections has not yet reached peak, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said.
The reopening of the economy has led medical experts to warn of a new wave of infection that could hit the country in a few weeks, possibly shortly before or during the election weekend.
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