The road to the Palace thrown open

29th January 2010

© PAP Tusk announces his decision not to run for the presidency Share:

The race to occupy Poland’s presidential palace was thrown wide open after Donald Tusk ruled himself out of the running.

Talking to reporters while on a visit to the stock exchange the prime minister said that he wanted to remain in charge of the government and oversee its plans to aid Poland’s economic recovery.

“I want to continue as prime minister ... my government has tools to achieve this goal (to maintain recovery),” he said. “To achieve it we need real power and instruments. These are with the government.

“Presidential elections are very important, but they are about prestige and great honour - not about good and effective governance. I do not want to take part in the race which ends at the (presidential) palace,” Mr Tusk continued.

The statement caught some off guard. Although the prime minister had been coy about his participation in the presidential race for some time it was widely predicted that he would eventually face off against President Lech Kaczynski, his bitter rival, in October’s election.

Mr Tusk, who has remained reasonably popular with voters, has frequently accused the president of scuppering his government’s reform programmes, so many thought that by aiming to defeat the Mr Kaczynski he would remove the problem.

But analysts have noted increased concern in Civic Platform (PO), Mr Tusk’s party, that the prime minister’s departure to higher office could weaken the government.

With Mr Tusk out of the running speculation has mounted as to just who will come out of the PO camp as candidate.

“We will shortly present PO's candidate for president and the final decision will be taken during the national convention on May 16,” said Grzegorz Schetyna, the head of PO's parliamentary club and a close aide to Mr Tusk.

But a couple of names have already been bandied about.

The party’s Jaroslaw Gowin has already said that Radek Sikorski, the Oxford educated foreign minister, would make a suitable candidate to take on Mr Kaczynski.

Mr Gowin also cited Bronislaw Komorowski, a senior PO man and parliamentary speaker, as another option.

Whoever PO chooses will have the task of stopping Mr Kaczynski winning a second term in office.

The twin of Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president has suffered from low popularity ratings for most of his presidency.