The right-wing opposition challenger Andrzej Duda defeated Incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski in the Polish presidential run-off, the Polish election commission confirmed on Monday.
Andrzej Duda, 43, a candidate from the Law and Justice Party, won 51.55 percent of votes in the run-off, while current President Bronislaw Komorowski, who was supported by the Civic Platform Party, obtained 48.45 percent of votes, BBC News reported. The Polish Central Election Commission said the turnout amounted to 55.34 percent.
"Those who voted for me, vote for change and thank you very much for that. I know, because I see the results that voted for me, even those who were supporters of other candidates. I firmly believe in the fact that in our country we are able to rebuild the community. I am confident that we can be together and fix our country," Duda said in a statement on his official website.
"It didn't work out this time, and that is the will of the citizens of a free and democratic Poland," Komorowski said after conceding defeat, the Polish Press Agency reported.
Duda is a lawyer and currently serving as Member of European Parliament (MEP), and he is from the southern city of Kraków, Polish Radio reported. He began his political career in the early 2000s in the liberal democratic Freedom Union but switched to the conservative Law and Justice Party in 2005. He became undersecretary in President Lech Kaczyński's Presidential Chancellery in 2008.
He resigned from his post after Komorowski won the presidency in 2010 in a snap poll following the tragic death of then-President Kaczyński in a Smolensk air catastrophe, according to Polish Radio. Duda was elected as an MP from the Kraków constituency in 2011 and later relinquished his post in 2014 after he became an MEP.
He is married and has one daughter who is currently studying at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
Duda is expected to be sworn in on Aug. 6 as sixth Polish president.
