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Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Bronislaw Komorowski will not be holding a TV debate tonight, both campaign teams have announced in the last day of hustings before Sunday’s ballot.

Kaczynski had challenged acting president Komrowski to a debate on Poland’s health service after he lost a court case this week after a ruling that he had misrepresented the Civic Platform candidate’s policy when he alleged that the government indented to privatise hospitals. The court in Warsaw demanded Kaczynski apologise for the incorrect statement, which Kaczynski has so far failed to do.

Slawomir Nowak, who is leading the Komorowski campaign told Polish radio that he regrets that Kaczynski only wanted to debate health policy in the TV debate and not other pressing issues such as what powers the president of Poland should have constitutionally.

Paweł Poncyljusz from Kaczynski’s campaign team said that his candidate still wants the debate, so “the nation can learn more about Komorowoski’s health plan”.

Meanwhile, the ten candidates in Poland’s first round of presidential elections gear up, Friday, for one final day of meet and greets, hand pumping and kissing the odd baby, or two.

Before the ‘election silence’ descends at midnight tonight ahead of the ballot on Sunday - when campaigning must stop and no opinion surveys can be published till polling stations close at 20.00 CET on June 20 - candidates are travelling nationwide trying to eek out a few extra votes.

Opinion polls suggest (see our poll tracker) only two candidates have any chance of making it into the second round in two weeks time - Bronislaw Komorowski, the acting president, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late president Lech Kaczynski, whose death in the Smolensk air disaster on April 10 necessitated the snap election.

If a candidate manages to secure an overall majority of votes on Sunday, however, then he will be elected straight into the presidential palace without need for a second round of voting. (pg)

Thenews.pl |