In what was billed as a key moment in Poland’s general election campaign last night, immediate polling afterwards shows that leader of the opposition Civic Platform, Donald Tusk, outshone his rival, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

One internet based poll of 53,000 voters gave Donald Tusk a 77 percent approval rating, though this is not regarded as a representative sample.

Another by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper gave Tusk 67 percent approval and Kaczynski 33 percent.

Analysts too thought that the opposition leader came out of the debate better.

Piotr Semka of Rzeczpospolita daily is of the opinion that both politicians presented themselves as partners, very close to one another. He also thinks that the Prime Minister had been assuming he would win easily, and was proved wrong.

But Stanisław Janecki of the WPROST weekly said on Polish Radio that Tusk's rhetoric was directed at political analysts, rather than ordinary men in the street and therefore it is hard to say who actually won the debate.