Lacklustre campaign pushes Poland's president toward run-off vote

President Bronislaw Komorowski of Poland decided he did not need to join fellow candidates in a televised election debate on Tuesday but one of them brought a chair for him anyway.

If he fails to win the presidential election outright on Sunday, Mr Komorowski may have to use the chair and engage with his opponent if he is to secure a second five-year term in office.

The contest comes ahead of parliamentary elections in which the centre-right Civic Platform party could lose control of Europe's sixth-largest economy. In power since 2007, the party has overseen economic growth that has far outstripped every other EU country and made Poland an emerging political power.

Mr Komorowski, standing for Civic Platform, began the presidential race on course for a thumping first-round victory that would ease the ruling party's route to a third straight success in parliamentary elections in October.

But a lacklustre campaign that underestimated the opposition has sent Mr Komorowski sliding toward a likely run-off after the ballots are counted on Sunday. Civic Platform's performance has boosted the main rightwing opposition that has sought to make the vote a referendum on the government's eight years in power.

Latest polls have Mr Komorowski pulling in 40 per cent of the vote, well below the 50.1 per cent needed to negate the need for a second round. Andrzej Duda of the rival rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS), is hovering around 25 per cent, with the rest of the field led by Pawel Kukiz, a former rock star, on 11 per cent. That is a far cry from the 60-20 split between Mr Komorowski and Mr Duda in late January.

"When Duda's candidacy was announced most commentators agreed that qualifying for the second round would be a huge success for Duda and an enormous boost for PiS," said Marek Magierowski, a political columnist. "Now the expectations [for Duda] are even more bloated."

The presidency is largely ceremonial role but its holder is the official commander of the armed forces and has the power to propose or veto parliamentary legislation.

With three days of the campaign remaining, Mr Komorowski visited a drinks factory in Olsztynek in northeast Poland as his rivals prepared for the evening debate.

Whisked through the plant by beaming executives and aggressive minders, Mr Komorowski was presented with a bottle of fruit juice with a motto printed in the lid - "Don't put things off that need doing".

"Well I am not going to wait until the second round. Let's do it in the first round!" he quipped to laughs from the factory workers.

While Mr Komorowski is expected to triumph over Mr Duda in a run-off, his failure to secure a certain first-round has raised concerns in Civic Platform, which was at pains to avoid portraying Mr Duda and his party as a credible alternative in October.

Senior officials of the ruling party privately admit that Mr Komorowski has blown his chances of a first-round victory and worry that a strong showing by Mr Duda could attract defectors from Civic Platform.

Mr Komorowski's campaign has also suffered from suggestions of arrogance and complacency, which have not chimed with supporters disillusioned by his party's long run in office.

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Mr Komorowski, who declined multiple requests for comment from the Financial Times, has promised to take part in a head-to-head debate in the event of a run-off.

During Tuesday's debate, Mr Duda, 42, said: "I am grateful to all my contenders who came here because it is respectful to voters. Poland needs to be fixed. You can have a new president in a few days."

The youthful looking member of the European Parliament has injected energy and enthusiasm into the PiS opposition, for years dominated by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 65, whose radical outbursts have turned off many swing voters.

Mr Duda has gone on the offensive, attacking Mr Komorowski's views in favour of euro adoption and lambasting him over sluggish wage growth, a rise in the retirement age and continued mass emigration.

In a harbinger of October's election, the incumbent's campaign has stressed the benefits of continuity, stability and trusted stewardship in the face of the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine and a resulting breakdown in relations with Russia.

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