Poles turn away from Kaczynski brothers' party in local polls

POLAND:Poland's voters have dealt a blow to the ruling Kaczynski twins by choosing a political rival to be mayor of Warsaw and handing victory to the main opposition party in nationwide local elections.

Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, of the liberal Civic Platform, beat former prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party to become mayor of the capital, a post held by Lech Kaczynski before he became president last year.

President Kaczynski and his identical twin, Jaroslaw, who is prime minister, were determined to hold onto the most prestigious city hall in Poland after enduring fierce criticism for a year of lacklustre rule marked by constant squabbles at home and abroad.

But boosted in Sunday's run-off by the support of the main centre-left party and the popular former president Alexander Kwasniewski, Ms Gronkiewicz-Waltz (54) ultimately took 53 per cent of ballots to become Warsaw's first woman mayor.

"With this vote, Warsaw has given a red card to PiS," said Ms Gronkiewicz-Waltz, who was the head of Poland's central bank from 1992 to 2000, before becoming vice-president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

"Definitely more people are coming to the conclusion that Law and Justice governs ineffectively," she said in yesterday's edition of the Dzienniknewspaper, while the Super Expresstabloid declared: "Hanna is Warsaw's First Lady".

Sunday's run-off in villages, towns and cities where no candidate won an overall majority in the first round of voting a fortnight ago, appeared to confirm predictions that PiS would trail Civic Platform and fail to win power in the majority of Poland's major cities.

The ruling party did retain control of Poland's second largest city, Lodz, but lost heavily in Krakow and many other urban centres while performing relatively strongly in the provincial towns and rural areas where its social conservatism and suspicion of Russia and Germany - and of the European Union - resonates most powerfully.

Law and Justice denies it is disappointed by the election results, but had hoped the vote would enhance its grassroots power at a time of huge opportunity, when local councils are receiving billions of euro in EU funds to boost regional development in Poland.

While Civic Platform appeared to be the overall winner of the local elections, perhaps the most striking performance came from the centre-left Social Democrats, who fared well in the first round of voting after being trounced in last year's general election.