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It's election day in Poland 
. More than 30 million Poles are eligible to cast a vote in today's presidential election. What is at stake? Who has the best chances to win? Why Europe should pay attention to the result? A thread. 1/x
@dgapev
. More than 30 million Poles are eligible to cast a vote in today's presidential election. What is at stake? Who has the best chances to win? Why Europe should pay attention to the result? A thread. 1/x@dgapev
The election was first scheduled for May 10. But after Poland's de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński's push for a last-minute switch to postal vote failed, it had to be postponed. 2/x
As a result, what was supposed to be an easy reelection campaign for incubent president Andrzej Duda of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, became a much more competitive race. Opinion polls show Duda with about 40% support. 3/x
Since the postponement, Duda, who is still the favourite, has run a pretty poor campaign and failed to find a message that would be appealling to anybody that is not already a PiS supporter. 4/x
Instead, he joined a hateful anti-gay campaign and called 'LGBT ideology' more harmful than communism. In a further attempt to boost his chances, he met with Donald Trump in Washington, DC only 4 days ahead of the election. 5/x
But this state vistit/pre-election stunt wasn't the success Duda hoped for. Apart from some cheap flattery from Trump, he wasn't able to deliver any concerete result, e.g. on US troops' movement to Poland. 6/x
Duda's toughest competitor is Warsaw Mayor Rafał @trzaskowski_ of formerly @donaldtusk's Civic Platform, who is polling at about 30%. If Duda&Trzaskowski face each other in the run-off, it'll be yet another installment of Poland’s old and deeply polarizing political rivalry. 7/x
Trzaskowski, who joined the race after the election got postponed, has had a fairly good campaign. His main message boils down to a simple slogan "enough is enough", but he also tried to distance himself from his still unpopular party. 8/x
In an attempt to demobilize PiS's voters Trzaskowski didn't shy away from compementing some of the ruling party's social policy achievements and campaining outside of his own party's strongholds. 9/x
Other candidates, including a former television host @szymon_holownia are polling behind the two front-runners. But Hołownia, who capitalizes on Poles’ fatigue with traditional political elites, can hope for a decent, two-digit result. 10/x
The most likely outcome of today's vote is Duda and Trzaskowski advancing to the run-off in two weeks time. Recent polls show it will be a neck and neck race as most opposition voters will throw their support behind Duda’s challenger. 11/x
If Duda is defeated, Kaczyński's model of governance will be over. Although most presidential powers are symbolic, the president is still by far the most decisive veto-player in the Polish political system. His/her veto can be overruled only by a qualified majority of 3/5. 12/x
This means that the nationalist government would have to find a way to work with a president who could safeguard checks and balances and rule of law unlike Duda, who was nicknamed "pen" by the opposition for signing almost every PiS's bill without any hesitation. 13/x
Although the president’s foreign policy competences are limited and subordinate to the government, a new head of state would try to put his stamp on it, too. Trzaskowski could use bilateral platforms to act more constructively towards Europe and rebuild Poland's reputation. 14/x
Looking further ahead, his win could trigger a political earthquake & force early elections. Internal rows between technocrats and hardliners have been growing within PiS for some time now and the ruling alliance might not survive the blame game following Duda's loss. 15/x
On the other hand, with Duda reelected, Kaczyński's Law and Justice could make another attempt to consolidate its power, e.g. by 'repolonizing' private media and regaining the control of the Senate by turning around some of the opposition legislators to their side. 16/x
First exit-polls will be published precisely at 9 PM when polling stations close. Preoccupied with the pandemic Europe hasn't payed much attention to this election so far, but as you can see there is a lot at stake here. 17/17.
