Poland presidential elections: Expert: Hungarian-Polish relations can improve by the new president

Budapest (MTI) – By the Polish presidential election victory of Andrzej Duda, it is possible to become the Hungarian-Polish relationship more intensive. The Hungarian culture, the traditional Hungarian-Polish friendship can receive more emphasis in Poland – Miklos Mitrovits, researcher of the Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Research Institute said to MTI on Tuesday.

The expert said it was a surprise that Andrzej Duda, candidate of Law and Justice Party (PiS) became first in the first round. The question was whether he could keep his position or the former President Bronislaw Komorowski could mobilize his voters and be able to convince at least a part of the voters of Pawel Kukiz, who became finished third.

Mitrovits highlighted: Duda could increase his first-round lead more than threefold: from 0.99% to 3.1%, so he won the second round too. Komorowski wasn’t able to determine the campaign, but rather he followed the opponent and responded to his topics.

The analyst thinks the first-round turnout was very low, but the second one was almost nearly like the elections 5 years ago (55.34%), which is quite good for a presidential election.

Miklos Mitrovits stressed: the new President will take the oath on August 6 and a new campaign will be launched from September, since there will be Sejm and Senate elections in the autumn. While PiS doesn’t have a majority in the Sejm, the new President can’t make much change. He thinks the elections can bring the change, if PiS will be able to form a government.

The expert also said Andrzej Duda doesn’t support the constitutional amendment needed for the introduction of the euro, doesn’t support the loosening of the strict laws of abortion and in vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage. In economic aspects, he doesn’t have a final word, and although he can make suggestions and has veto power, the latter won’t take place often, if PiS will be able to form a government. He expected to be a conservative President who will maintain the close relationship of state and church, and he will take a lead role in national issues – the expert said.

Miklos Mitrovits thinsk the Polish foreign policy won’t change radically, since PiS has Atlanticist policies, like the Civic Platform. However, Duda and his party rather support the USA and NATO than the EU. In the case of Ukraine, he also supports the independent state, and since his party and its President, Jaroslaw Kaczynski are quite anti-Russian, it is not expected the Russian-Polish relationship to improve.

The expert sees some changes in the Hungarian-Polish relations as well. The leadership of the governing PO hasn’t sympathized with the Hungarian domestic political direction and economic policy explicitly, but they openly criticized the pragmatic relations with the Russians. However, PiS and supporters have mentioned the Hungarian economic policy as a positive example.

But Hungarian-Russian relations are also unacceptable for them as well; Kaczynski issued a statement in February, where he said he wouldn’t meet Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Mitrovits said: despite the Ukrainian crisis, there will be chance to become the two countries’ relationship more intensive. This may be particularly so, if PiS won the elections in autumn.

based on the article of MTI
translated by BA

Photo: Andrzej Duda Facebook page

Source: http://mti.hu