Polls opened at 7 am. Poland’s incumbent conservative President Andrzej Duda is running against centrist challenger Rafał Trzaskowski.
Andrzej Duda became president in 2015 and is bidding for another five years in office. He came top in the first round of the presidential contest last month, garnering 43.5 percent of the vote.
Rafał Trzaskowski is a former government minister who was elected mayor of Warsaw in October 2018. In the first round he gathered 30.46 percent, according to the National Electoral Commission (PKW).
In Poland, the president is the head of state, the Prime Minister being the head of government. The president is the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, has the power to veto legislation passed by parliament, which may be overridden by a majority of three fifths, and can dissolve parliament under certain conditions.
No candidate out of the 11 running won an outright majority in a first round of voting on June 28. Polish election rules specify that if no presidential contender wins more than 50 percent of the vote in a first-round contest, a second round is held two weeks later.
Because of COVID-19, strict sanitary precautions are in place. Voters are asked to cover nose and mouth at the station, sanitize hands and keep a distance of two metres between one another in queues.
In the second round, disabled people, pregnant women, people with children aged under three, and citizens over 60 have been awarded priority access to polling stations.
Head of the State Electoral Commission, judge Sylwester Marciniak has informed that there was no information about a rise in coronavirus infections after the first round on June 28.
Meanwhile electoral silence in Poland continues, with a ban on all campaigning till polls close at 9 pm.
Source: PAP/IAR