Polish governing party hopes to keep Warsaw city hall in local elections

WARSAW, Poland: Poland's conservative governing party hoped to hang on to the Warsaw mayor's office Sunday in the most closely watched of hundreds of local election races testing its strength.

Sunday's runoff vote in Warsaw was needed because no candidate reached the 50 percent of the vote needed to win outright in a first round of voting on Nov. 12.

A second round was required in 828 towns nationwide. However, attention focused on whether former Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz would keep the Warsaw mayor's office for the governing Law and Justice party.

Marcinkiewicz faces a strong challenge from the main opposition party, the business-friendly Civic Platform, which fielded as its candidate former central bank president Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz.

Marcinkiewicz, who has been Warsaw's acting mayor since the summer, emerged from the first round with a four-point lead. The Warsaw mayor's job was once held by Lech Kaczynski, now Poland's president.

The socially conservative Law and Justice lost overall control of Warsaw city council to Civic Platform in November, among other losses.

However, Law and Justice, which has led the Polish government for the past year, performed strongly in rural areas.

Led by the president's twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, it pledged to wipe out corruption and purge the country of vestiges of communist rule. However, reform efforts in other areas have been slowed by political infighting.

Source:iht.com