Final day of voting in Civic Platform leadership election

photo - po.org.pl

Party officials say that they will begin counting the votes on Wednesday.

Turnout in the election has exceeded 45 percent, officials have told the PAP news agency, after former justice minister Jaroslaw Gowin challenged Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the leadership of Poland's centre-right Civic Platform party.

The election follows Gowin's sacking from the government in May after disputes over policy, including civil partnerships, state funding for the IVF procedure and other issues.

Gowin and two other MPs also abstained on a vote in parliament in August over changes to this year's budget law proposed by Civic Platform's finance minister, arguing the proposal to raise of borrowing levels, after shortfalls in revenue due to a slowing economy, would be bad for fiscal discipline.

Around 42,000 party members are eligible to vote in the election, which has been carried out through the internet and postal vote.

Gowin, who is seen as the leader of Civic Platform's 'conservative' faction, writes in an article in today's Rzeczpospolita newspaper that he wants to see the party, formed in 2001, return to its “roots” and stand on a ticket in the 2015 general election of traditional values and a free market. (pg)

It is being speculated that PM Tusk may request the party to suspend or banish Gowin from Civic Platform, in power since 2007, if he loses the leadership election. (pg)