Komorowski elected as new Polish president

WARSAW: Moderate conservative Bronislaw Komorowski won Poland's presidential election on Monday after a cliffhanger vote that saw his right wing rival Jaroslaw Kaczynski perform much better than expected.

Komorowski's narrow victory will bring relief to investors who feared Kaczynski, leader of the main opposition party, would veto reforms needed to repair Poland's battered public finances.

Komorowski, who hails from Prime Minister Donald Tusk's ruling market oriented, pro euro Civic Platform (PO), won 52.6 per cent of the vote in Sunday's election, based on 95 per cent of the ballots cast, the election commission said while Kaczynski received 47.4 per cent of the vote.

Final results are due on Monday afternoon.

In Poland, the government led by the prime minister sets policy, but the president can propose and veto laws, appoints many key officials and has a say in foreign and security policy.

Komorowski, a gently-spoken father of five grown-up children, will be Poland's fourth democratically elected president since the fall of communism 1989. As speaker of Poland's lower house of parliament and second ranking official in the state hierarchy, he automatically became acting president after Lech Kaczynski's death in the plane crash.