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Duda struck a conciliatory note in statements following the early results of the vote, based on an exit poll, which initially showed the president was only 0.8pp ahead of Trzaskowski.
The president called for creating
a “coalition of Polish matters,”
a movement, he said, of “politicians of different opinions and people who support them.”
“Let’s support each other if values like family, our Polish community, our culture, traditions, history, heroism, and pride are important to us,” Duda said.
The opposition was quick to lambast those words as lacking credibility after a campaign in which Duda attacked the LGBT Poles or independent media.
Duda secures reelection at a difficult time for the Polish economy. Poland’s GDP is expected to sink around 4% in 2020 in the aftermath of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The president and the PiS government are taking credit, however, for the pandemic not having damaged life in Poland to the extent seen in Italy or the UK.
With Duda at the helm for another
five years, PiS’ power remains largely unchallenged, bar for the Senate, where the opposition holds a tiny minority. The opposition now has three years before the next general election in which it might attempt to win back
a parliamentary majority and set up
a two-year period of governing with hostile Duda, who will remain in office until 2025.
“[The] difference is large enough
that we have to accept the result,” Grzegorz Schetyna, the former head of Poland’s opposition Civic Platform (PO) party and member of parliament told opposition-leaning private broadcaster TVN24 on Monday.
PO’s officials had earlier flagged a possibility of irregularities in the vote, especially in polling stations abroad.
Poland’s coal production falls to all-time low in May
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Coal output in Poland fell 16.7% m/m to 3.5mn tonnes in May, the lowest level on record due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown and the resulting fall in demand from industry, local media reported on July 2. Meanwhile, coal sales slid 12.5% m/m to 3.5mn tonnes in the
same period.
Poland generates nearly three-quarters of its electricity from coal but the mining industry is facing financial problems due to falling demand and rising production costs.
Poland’s utilities – which, like most coal mines, are controlled by the state – often prefer cheaper imported coal. They are also investing in renewable sources of electricity, which further depresses demand.
Coal stockpiles fell to 7.4mn tonnes in May from 7.75mn in April, but remained at the highest level since 2015, when the industry was facing similar problems, according to data compiled by the Katowice branch of the Industrial Development Agency (ARP), a state body monitoring the coal market and the situation in the mining industry.
Polish mines extracted over 61.6mn tonnes of coal in 2019, some 1.8mn less – or 2.8% – than the preceding year. Coal sales dropped by 4.1mn tonnes to over 58.4mn tonnes in the same period. That was a reduction of 6.6%.
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