In a stunner, Polish President Bronisław Komorowski of the center-right Civic Platform lost his bid for re-election on Sunday in a runoff. Komorowski took just 48.5 percent of the vote, while the winner, Andrzej Duda of the Law and Justice party, captured 51.5 percent. Even though Komoroski's party had presided over eight years of prosperity, Duda successfully challenged Komorowski from the right. Duda has been described as socially conservative and "Euroskeptic" while also advocating populist economic policies such as abolishing the income tax for the poorest workers.
Just a little over a month ago, prior to the first round of voting, Komorowski had a double-digit lead in the polls over Duda and a third candidate, former rock star Pawel Kukiz. The polls were wrong (yet again, this year): Duda came in first with 34.8 percent to Komorowski's 32.2.
The most striking feature of the maps above, though, is how geographically divided Poland is—and how deeply into history that divide runs. The dark line in the center of the map that roughly divides the north and the west from southeast is the old territorial border that separated Prussia and Russia, which was decreed by the Congress of Vienna all the way back in 1815, following the end of the Napoleonic wars.
This border persisted, although the nations ruling on either side of it changed, until after World War I, when Poland was reconstituted as an independent country by the Allied powers at Versailles. But while this line may no longer appear on maps, it still very much figures in Poland's political consciousness, as the more conservative southeast (which was once part of Russia) voted en masse for Duda. The past is, indeed, always with us.
Below the fold, we compare these results to see what changed since 2010's election, which Komorowski won comfortably.