PRESIDENTAL CAMPAIGN OF 2020 IN THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND

Abstract

For the fi rst time in the Ukrainian historical and political scientifi c discourse, the preconditions, course, results, and consequences of the Republic of Poland President elections in 2020 are analyzed.The authors propose a retrospective of the 2020 presidential campaign in Poland, which goes beyond the established in a large part of the domestic media and experts from the previous political regime in Ukraine, representing the «good» candidate from the opposition «Civic Coalition» M. Kidawa-Błońska / R. Trzaskowski and the «bad» President of Poland and a new term candidate, A. Duda, from the pro-government party «Law and Justice». The main focus is on the course of the presidential campaign, in particular, through the comparison of the dynamics of Poles’ electoral sympathies and opinion polls of various structures during February-June last year.The impact of the COVID-2019 pandemic on the course of the election process, in general, and changes in Polish legislation and among candidates for the highest public offi  ce are considered separately, which was observed at the fi nal stage of the 2020 presidential campaign in Poland.To sum up, the Polish political elections of 2020 entered the recent political history of the country during the pandemic period as the fi rst national elections that were initially postponed due to the threat of coronavirus; nevertheless, voting during serious quarantine measures in the projected fi rst round took place at polling stations, and in two communes in the south-west, voting became possible only in the so-called correspondence method.The number of votes cast for both candidates in the second round was 20,458.9 thousand, which is 10,334.5 thousand more than in the fi rst round. Even though the new candidate from the «Civil Coalition», R. Trzaskowski, was almost 2,910.8 thousand votes ahead of his rival in the calculations of the increase in the number of voters between the fi rst and second rounds, he did not defeat A. Duda. With a slight advantage (422.3 thousand) the last-mentioned was re-elected for a new term.Focusing on the results of the voting and the results of the elections for the Polish political system in the coming years, it is fi rst worth noting the devastating defeat of the nominees from the PSP and the «Livytsi». Secondly, in the background of the collapse of the left and center-left candidates, the obvious success is the result of the right-conservative K. Bosak, which, however, will have to compete in the coming years with other leaders of the «Confederation» for leadership on the far right fl ank of Polish politics, in particular, in the context of possible early parliamentary elections.Further research should continue the study of the issue of the permanent political crisis in the pro-government camp of the United Right and the growing political weight of the «bronze» winner of the fi rst round of voting on June 28, 2020, Sz. Hołownia and his movement «Poland-2050».