Party officials announce party leadership election results, Friday: photo - PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Party officials of the centre-right Civic Platform (PO) which has led the coalition government in Poland since 2007, said turnout in the election, by postal vote and via the internet, was 51.12 percent.
“I want to thank everyone who voted in the election for President of Civic Platform,” Donald Tusk said right after the results were announced.
“In particular I want to sincerely thank all those who put their trust in me again and gave me their vote”.
On earlier reports by Polish Radio, on unofficial information coming from party officials that just 20 percent of those who voted had chosen the former justice minister to lead Civic Platform, Gowin tweeted that, for him, the election has been a success.
“10 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent is meaningless …. what is important is that less than 50 percent voted for the other side,” Gowin said, referring to the fact that the low turnout meant a majority had not voted, or had abstained from voting, for Donald Tusk.
Gowin’s challenge to Tusk’s leadership of a party with 48,000 members, came after he was sacked from the government in May after conflict over social and finance policy.
The rebel MP – who leads the conservative faction of the ‘liberal-conservative’ Civic Platform – also abstained with two other party MPs in a vote called by the finance ministry in August to raise borrowing levels allowed by the Public Finance Act, as Poland’s economy slowed more than expected this year.
Gowin will be giving a press conference, Friday lunchtime, when he is expected to give his next move after party members have called for his suspension or banishment from Civic Platform.
Gowin has previously said that he has no intention of joining the largest opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), whose conservative electorate shares his views on civil partnerships and state funding for IVF – two policies that PM Tusk has been trying to push through parliament.
'Roots'
The former justice minister has said that Civic Platform, formed in 2001, should “return to its roots” of a free market and traditional social values.
The leadership election has come at a tough time for PM Tusk, who is under increasing pressure to turn around opinion polls, which see Civic Platform trailing Law and Justice by up to 11 percent.
The next general election in Poland is scheduled for 2015.
Civic Platform’s mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz will also have to face a recall referendum in October, after opposition groups within Town Hall collected thousands of signatures demanding she stand down. (pg)