Poland to hold general election on October 25

Poland’s president on Friday announced that parliamentary elections would take place on October 25, with the country’s ruling centrists bracing for a stiff challenge from the conservative opposition.
Outgoing president Bronislaw Komorowski, an ally of the ruling Civic Platform (PO), called the election two months after being defeated in his reelection bid by Andrzej Duda, a conservative.
That election showed voters in the Central European powerhouse hungry for change after eight years of PO rule and polls show the parliamentary election could follow suit.
If the general election were held now, the eurosceptic, conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski — a former premier and twin of late president Lech Kaczynski — would score 33 percent, according to a Millward Brown poll published this week.
Civic Platform would receive 23 percent of the vote, while the movement of anti-establishment rocker Pawel Kukiz, a political newcomer, would score 18 percent.
Kukiz has yet to formally register a political party.
He burst out of nowhere to secure third place in the first round of the May presidential election, appealing in large part to disillusioned voters, especially young Poles struggling to find work.
Komorowski had been expected to easily clich a second term but lost to PiS candidate Duda, an energetic lawyer with a man-of-the-people image who will be sworn in as president on August 6.
Komorowski has ruled out running in the parliamentary ballot.