Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz; photo - PR

If a new opinion poll is to be believed then the incumbent president of Warsaw has nothing to fear from the announcement yesterday by Law and Justice that they are putting forward non-party member Czeslaw Bielecki to challenge for control of the capital in local elections on 21 November.

The poll by Gfk Polonia finds that Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz will receive 57 percent of the vote in the local election in Warsaw. Czeslaw Bielecki - who said that it was time to rid the capital of partisan politics yesterday - would gain just 12 percent of the votes.

"I hope that this result is an expression of the satisfaction of the inhabitants of Warsaw with my work," Gronkiewicz-Waltz told Dziennik.pl.

With two months still to go before polling day in the local elections - which will give a pointer to results in the general election which will be held in Poland probably in the first half of next year  - other candidates in the race for the capital are all on or below five percent support, including right winger Janusz Korwin- Mikke, Democratic Left Alliance’s Wojciech Olejniczak, social democrat Marek Borowski and former president of Warsaw Pawel Piskorski. (pg)