Main ruling coalition grouping favourite for local elections - poll

Slightly over 40 percent of the Polish public see Civic Coalition (KO), the backbone grouping of the country's coalition government, winning local government elections in April.

Photo: PAP/Valdemar Doveiko
Photo: PAP/Valdemar Doveiko

Local elections will be held nationally on Sunday April 7 with a second round of voting to directly elect mayors and council leaders on April 21. 

The local elections come just six months after a general election that saw the previous government, led by the socially conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, ousted by a coalition of pro-EU parties. Prime Minister Donald Tusk (KO) has said the local ballot will be the first real test of the new government's popularity.

The poll by United Surveys, commissioned by the Wirtualna Polska website revealed that 40.1 percent of the public expect KO to triumph in the local elections with PiS in second place on 20.5 percent, although more people (22.8 percent) said they had no idea who would win.

The Third Way, a ruling coalition member grouping the centre-right Poland 2050 and the agrarian Polish People's Party (PSL), took third position with 13.8 percent of respondents expecting to see them victorious, with the far-right Confederation party trailing on 2.5 percent.

Even fewer of those polled (0.3 percent) saw The New Left, another member of the ruling coalition, as coming out on top in April.

United Surveys conducted the poll between January 26 and 28 using the Computer-Assisted Telephone and Web Interview (CATI and CAWI) methodologies on a group of 1,000 pollees(PAP)
ej/mr
 

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