Poles prepare to pick a new president in election that could shape the country’s direction

Tragedy sets tone in race for new Polish president

WARSAW, Poland — National tragedy has set the stage in Poland for a presidential election whose outcome could shape the country’s direction on issues like the adoption of the euro, welfare reform and even its mission in Afghanistan.

Two months after President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash along with 95 others, Poles vote Sunday in an early presidential election to choose his successor.

The two main contenders are men whose own fates have been altered by that disaster — the president’s identical twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and Bronislaw Komorowski, the pro-business parliament speaker thrust by law into the role of acting president.

Kaczynski, a former prime minister known for his social conservatism and combative style, has enjoyed a surge of popularity in past weeks as he has traveled the country to meet with voters, striking an uncharacteristically moderate and conciliatory tone. The twins were extremely close — from their time as childhood actors to their activism in the anti-communist Solidarity movement to their co-founding of the Catholic-inspired political party, Law and Justice.

But opinion polls show that Kaczynski, who turns 61 on Friday, still won’t manage to swing the sympathy vote enough to overtake Komorowski, a former Solidarity activist himself and the scion of a centuries-old aristocratic family.

Komorowski belongs to the moderate and market-friendly governing Civic Platform party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and as president he would give Tusk’s government a green light for further pro-market reforms in this eastern European country of 38 million — the largest of the ex-communist countries to join the European Union in recent years.

Poland is the only EU country that avoided recession during the global economic downturn and the course it sets now will also determine how it fares as Europe struggles with the new debt crisis that started in Greece and has moved across the continent.

Poland’s presidents carry out many ceremonial functions, but they can also veto laws. The late President Kaczynski, who favored a strong welfare state and was skeptical of closer ties to the EU, often used that power to put the brakes on Tusk’s program. Political observers believe his brother would do the same.

In Poland, the president is also commander in chief and has influence on foreign military operations. Komorowski said Saturday that he wants the country’s mission in Afghanistan to end soon — another issue that puts him in line with Prime Minister Tusk, who the same day said he would push NATO to develop a timetable to withdraw. Poland has 2,600 troops in Afghanistan.

With Komorowski as head of state, Tusk will find it much easier to carry out his economic reform agenda, which includes privatizing more state industries and raising the retirement age, which is currently 60 for women and 65 for men — steps aimed at cutting a high deficit. Komorowski also backs the government’s aim to adopt the euro in the next five years or so; he said he favors adoption in 2015 or 2016.

Kaczynski is less keen on euro adoption, fearing it could cause price hikes that would hurt the poor, and said Sunday the switch from the zloty could only come when “Polish pockets are completely safe.” His socially conservative views on gays and preserving the country’s strict abortion laws also seem out of step with the European mainstream.

Komorowski has also pledged to put an end to the fighting between the presidential palace and the prime minister’s chancellery that marked the relationship between President Kaczynski and Tusk over the past three years.

“The time has come to end disputes,” Komorowski, 58, said during an election debate Sunday. “The image of our country is at stake.”

Kaczynski’s supporters see him as keeping in check Tusk’s attempts to pare back social safety nets. The Kaczynskis got much of their support from older, conservative and rural voters — many of them people who feel they are losing out in the competitive and less secure capitalist era.

Piotr Trembecki, a 35-year-old construction worker from Wilkow, is among Kaczynski supporters criticizing the government for its handling of recent flooding. He said he hopes the suffering caused by the floods in his area gives Kaczynski a boost by reminding voters that Komorowski’s Civic Platform “never cared for the poor or for the farmers.”

“Kaczynski has a clear vision of what he wants. He has a plan. He fought corruption and crime, he defended Poland’s interests in Europe,” Trembecki said. “And many people have sympathy for him and will want to vote for him as encouragement.”

The nationalist brothers spoke bluntly about old foes Germany and Russia, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s time as prime minister — from 2006 to 2007 — was marked by increased tensions with Berlin, Moscow as well as Brussels. At home, he presided over a dysfunctional and short-lived coalition formed with a far-right party and a populist agrarian group.

One of his more controversial acts as prime minister was to try to purge former communist collaborators from public life. It would have required up to 700,000 people in public positions, including journalists and teachers, to be screened, but was struck down as unconstitutional.

“It was a bad time, and we Poles were also very ashamed when his brother was president,” said Ewa Jezak, a 39-year-old economist and Komorowski supporter at a campaign rally Sunday in a Warsaw park. “I want Komorowski to be president because he is a calm and balanced person.”

Opinion surveys vary, but they show Komorowski with support in the 40-50 percent range, and Kaczynski polling around 30-38 percent. There are several other candidates but none has a realistic chance of winning. If no candidate musters at least 50 percent on Sunday, voters will have to choose between the top two candidates in a runoff vote on July 4 — a scenario that seems likely.

Whether Komorowski or Kaczynski wins, Poland is set to have a president with a traditional image.

Kaczynski’s parents fought in the anti-Nazi Warsaw Uprising during World War II and nurtured Catholic, patriotic values that form the basis of the Kaczynskis’ mission: fighting corruption and using a strong state to support the poor and promote religious values.

Komorowski has stressed his own service to the country and reminded voters he was imprisoned for his anti-communist opposition in 1981. In contrast with the bachelor Kaczynski, his commercials also emphasize the importance that Komorowski, a father of five, puts on family: he is shown sitting at the head of the family dinner table surrounded by his grown children as his wife carries food to the table.

Associated Press Writer Monika Scislowska contributed to this report from Wilkow.