Nobody really knows what President Duda’s policy will be given that his victory was a big surprise even to Duda’s mentor, opposition Law and Justice Party leader Yaroslav Kaczynski. However, it was not only Poles who saw the results of the latest presidential polls as being totally unexpected. Andrzej Duda equally surprised Europe. He campaigned on a platform of asserting Poland’s interests within the EU, as well as on promises to pay more attention to the domestic problems afflicting the country.
Many in the West are in shock, since they had misleadingly believed that Poles were all in support of EU, no questions asked. So, Duda’s victory casts doubts on many popularly held assumptions about Polish society, and raises questions about whether Poland may be positioning itself for a new role in Europe. Finally, one more surprise from Mr. Duda came right after the elections, when he skipped a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The move was seen as a cold shower for Kiev, which initially saw Poland as its key lobbyist in the EU.
Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute of Middle East Studies (studio guest), Michal Kokot, political observer, Gazeta Wyborcza paper and Arkady Moshes, Director of Russia’s program, Finnish Institute of International Relations (Helsinki) commented on the issue.
