The second and final round of Poland’s Presidential elections takes place today.

Bronislaw Komorowski (Citizens Platform) is hoping not to get pipp’d at the post by Jaroslaw Kaczynski (Law and Justice), twin brother of President Lech Kaczynski who died in the Smolensk disaster.

Which of them is the more ‘right-wing’?

I have written before on the difficulty of applying our political labels to Polish politics:

A much better way to look at these things which gives a spread of views for Poland at least is to have two different axes:

  • Economic:  State – Market
  • Belief:  Religion – Atheist

Looked at this way much more articulated differences appear between the parties.

Civic Platform occupy a blob mainly on the Market side but dipping down into the Atheist camp. Law and Justice occupy a blob which overlaps significantly with Civic Platform but which is also notably more Religious/State. The former communists rebooted as social democrats are a blob with both Market and State but notably more Atheism.

As Poland is, yes, a Catholic country it is not surprising that the two parties (Civic Platform and Law and Justice) which now express in different ways a not too extreme combination of State and Market but with more Religion than Atheism occupy nearly 75% of the popular vote.

True to form, Jaroslaw Kaczynski has been making more overtly ‘State’ noises to try to woo poorer voters, although as you know Citizens Platform too have been moving in an etatist direction recently. Kaczynski even said some nice things about communist-era leader Gierek ("a communist, yet also a patriot"), a brazen nod to former communist voters.

On private morality issues (divorce, gay marriage, abortion, women’s rights) there is nothing between the two candidates. If anything Komorowski is rather more ‘conservative’ by instinct at least.

On EU questions, Komorowski and his party are notably more EU-enthusiastic than Kaczynski and his. But Kaczynski has cleverly added some new, more mellow European tones to his post-Smolensk rhetoric and talks about greater CAP support for Polish farmers – not an issue where he might easily find common ground with the UK in the looming EU Budget negotiation.

That said, insofar as there may need in the coming years to be far-reaching EU measures to tackle the Eurozone and other structural problems, Kaczynski and David Cameron should easily agree on a rebalancing involving more member state and less Brussels. Kaczynski squeezed in a flying visit to London during the campaign.

Who’s going to win?

It looks increasingly like a re-run of the 2005 election, when Citizens Platform Donald Tusk had a solid lead after the first round but was overtaken in the final days of the campaign by Lech Kaczynski.

So, don’t be surprised if Komorowski fails to win in the final count, after leading comfortably in the polls for many months.

If Kaczynski does win, it will be down to his brilliant political calculation and canny execution carried out amidst intense private pain after the Smolensk crash – he and Lech were as close as any two siblings can be.

Life in Poland will proceed fairly well, with a mainly market-inclined, technocratic Citizens Platform in government dealing with the Polish Body, and quirky, grumpy, and very patriotic Law and Justice keeping a close eye on the Polish Soul.

A good outcome for the Conservatives here as well.