WARSAW – Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has timed an October vote to coincide with Poland’s presidency of the European Union to boost his ruling centrist party’s chances, his main rival and opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said.
Mr Kaczynski, whose right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party trails Mr Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) in opinion polls said he was ready for four more years in opposition, but added that PO’s lead was not as wide as believed.
The EU’s rotating six-month presidency, which Poland assumes on July 1st, will provide a European and global platform for Mr Tusk and his ministers to impress voters in the countdown to the election, expected in October, the latest month it can be held.
“Everything suggests that leaving the election until the autumn was aimed at using the presidency to attract more support for PO,” Mr Kaczynski said in comments authorised for publication on Thursday.
Mr Tusk wants PO to become the first party to win re-election in Poland since the fall of communism in 1989.
“The election should clearly have been held in the spring, ahead of Poland’s EU presidency. It is such a logistical burden, it is impossible to handle both at the same time,” Mr Kaczynski said.
“The effectiveness of the operation will hinge on whether Poles can be deceived that the presidency is really something extraordinary,” the conservative eurosceptic added.
Mr Kaczynski, ousted as premier by Mr Tusk in 2007, wears a black tie in memory of his identical twin brother Lech, Poland’s president who died in a plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, on April 10th, 2010, along with 95 others.
The party is still trying to replenish its ranks after losing key members in the disaster, he said.
Opinion polls have consistently shown Mr Tusk’s economically liberal and pro-EU party well ahead of rivals. It has been buoyed by Mr Tusk’s political savvy and Poland’s economic growth, expected to hit 4.2 percent this year.