Voting begins in Poland presidential election on Sunday
Jun 28, 2020
Warsaw [Poland], June 28 : Polish voters have begun casting their ballots in the presidential race that had to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic, Al Jazeera reported.
Polling stations opened at 7a.m. (local time) on Sunday and will close at 9 p.m. (local time) with an exit poll expected as soon as voting ends.
Incumbent Andrzej Duda, 48, is campaigning for re-election in a vote that could determine the future of the right-wing government that supports him.
Duda has promised to defend the governing party's raft of popular social benefits, including a child allowance and extra pension payments - a key factor behind the populists winning a second term in October's parliamentary election.
Ten candidates are vying to replace him, but opinion polls suggest that Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, a liberal from the main Civic Platform (PO) opposition party, will enter a neck-and-neck runoff on July 12.
The most recent polls showed that no single candidate was likely to reach the 50 per cent required to avoid a runoff given the crowded field of candidates, all of whom are male. In that case, the two top vote-getters will face each other on July 12.
The vote had been scheduled for May 10 but was postponed in a chaotic political and legal battle as the ruling party pressed to hold it despite the pandemic.
While official figures show at least 33,000 confirmed cases and more than 1,400 deaths, the health minister has admitted that there are likely up to 1.6 million undetected cases in Poland, an EU country of 38 million people.
