Donald Tusk's party chooses Warsaw mayor as presidential candidate

A day after 22,000 members of Donald Tusk's Civic Coalition party voted in a primary to pick their candidate in next year's presidential election, it was announced that nearly 75% of votes had gone to Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski.

Prime Minister Tusk made the announcment at a party gathering on Saturday, with Trzaskowski winning at the expense of Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who won slightly over 25% of the votes.

Political observers in Poland say Tusk's pro-EU party is already in a strong position ahead of the presidential election, firstly by showing that it had two strong candidates, creating a buzz around the primary and also allowing party members to democratically choose their nominee.

At the party event, Tusk said “We are responsible people, we are responsible for the fate of our homeland today.” He also noted that it is only the start of what is expected to be a tough campaign.

Unlike Civic Coalition, its national-conservative main rival Law and Justice party, known as PiS, will have its candidate handpicked by leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

Commenting on this during his acceptance speech, Trzaskowski said that “In PiS, one vote matters, while we value every vote, and that’s how we differ. I’m convinced that we’re coming out of this election stronger, we’re all stronger, and I have a very strong mandate and a lot of energy, determination and courage to beat PiS.”

Meanwhile, Sikorski congratulated Trzaskowski and promised to offer his support.

Trzaskowski has been an obvious favourite to be the party's candidate for some time, but was recently challenged by Sikorski, who claimed that his own experience in security and defense issues made him the better candidate during a period of war in neighbouring Ukraine and