Polish presidential election, 2000

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8 October 2000

2005 →

Turnout

61.08%


Nominee	Aleksander Kwaśniewski	Andrzej Olechowski
Party	Independent	Independent
Popular vote	9,485,224	3,044,141
Percentage	53.9%	17.3%


Nominee	Marian Krzaklewski	Jarosław Kalinowski
Party	AWS	PSL
Popular vote	2,739,621	1,047,949
Percentage	15.6%	6.0%

President before election

Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Independent

President

Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Independent

The 2000 Polish presidential election took place in Poland on 8 October 2000. Incumbent President Aleksander Kwaśniewski was easily re-elected in the first round after winning more than 50% of the votes.

President Kwaśniewski was seen as very likely to win re-election in the run up to the presidential election with polls showing that his popularity was high as 70% support. His main challenger was expected to be Marian Krzaklewski from the Solidarity Electoral Action, which had formed the government since winning the last parliamentary elections in 1997. The other main candidate was a former Foreign Minister and more liberal conservative Andrzej Olechowski, who won support from voters who were discontented with both of the other main candidates and in particular younger voters, businessmen and intellectuals.

Candidates seen as having less of a chance included Andrzej Lepper, a populist farmers leader who opposed entry into the European Union and former president Lech Wałęsa. Wałęsa was rejected as the candidate for the Solidarity party he had won the presidency for, and thus ran separately in the election.

In order to be elected in the first round a candidate had to gain over 50% of the vote. If no candidate reached this level, then a second round would have been held between the top two candidates. As the campaign continued, the biggest question in the election was whether or not incumbent President Kwaśniewski would win the 50% required to avoid a second round.

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Wikipedia