Duda, a conservative, delivered a wide-ranging address to parliamentarians, setting out his vision of the next five years.
The ceremonies were conducted with sanitary measures in place after a spike in coronavirus cases.
Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Poland on Thursday reported a record daily rise in COVID-19 infections, confirming 726 new cases, the most since the pandemic hit the country in early March.
Underscoring the country’s bitter political divisions, Thursday’s swearing-in ceremony was boycotted by a number of prominent figures critical of Duda and Poland’s conservative government.
Among those absent were former presidents Lech Wałęsa and Bronisław Komorowski, as well as a slew of former prime ministers, state news agency PAP reported.
Accusing Duda of violating the Polish constitution, Borys Budka, leader of the opposition Civic Platform party, said ahead of the ceremonies that he would not attend as a form of protest.
Conservative supporters of Duda repudiate such claims.
Duda garnered 51.03 percent of the vote in Poland’s run-off presidential election last month, while opposition-backed challenger Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, won 48.97 percent.
A special chamber within Poland’s Supreme Court on Monday announced that the result the election was valid, despite over 5,000 legal challenges to the ballot.
(pk/gs)
Source: PAP/IAR