Bronislaw Komorowski Elected President of Poland

On 05 July 2010, Bronislaw Komorowski of the ruling Civic Platform Party was elected the President of Poland. He defeated his rival Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Law and Justice Party in the presidential elections held in June 2010.  Bronislaw won 52.6 % of the total votes counted while Jaroslaw won 47.4 %. This run- off election took place after neither candidate could achieve more than 50% in the first round of the election in June 2010.The winner had won 41.5% and Kaczynski 36.5% of the votes and eight other candidates were eliminated in the first round. The presidential election had taken place as a result of untimely death of Polish President who died in a plane crash.

Previously, Poland’s parliamentary speaker, Bronislaw Komorowski   was given the role of acting President after the death of President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash in Russia.

• The parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in 2011.
• The civic platform party created by Andrzej Olechowski in 2001is a party which represents the liberal mindset, private entrepreneurs and business circles of the country. The party supports free market economy and the principle of competition. The ruling party favours market reforms and cooperation with EU partners.
• The law and justice party is a right wing party which has its ideology based on the solidarity movement of the 1980s.The party represents right wing electorate which favours a traditional social order, a free market economy, national unity.
• Poland still has a large agricultural sector. Its rural areas are backward and poor.
• Recently, Poland achieved some success in creating a market economy and attracting foreign investment. Many of its workers migrated to western European countries.
• Poland supported US-led campaign In Iraq by sending its 2500 soldiers to Iraq.
• Elections in the year of 1989, resulted into the first post communist government of eastern Europe in Poland.
• The solidarity movement of the nation which continued throughout the 1980s was influenced to a large extent by the presence of Polish pope John Paul-II. The Roman Catholic Church still has a considerable influence over the polish people.
• Poland became the member of European Union in May 2004 and got the membership of NATO in 1999.