DUMB AND DUMBER:

Poland Heads Toward Runoff For Presidency (Vanessa Gera, October 10, 2005, Associated Press)

A pro-market lawmaker and Warsaw's socially conservative mayor appeared headed for a runoff after neither candidate appeared to have gained the majority of the vote needed for an outright win in Poland's presidential election on Sunday, according to preliminary results and a key exit poll.

With 91.5 percent of the ballots counted, the state electoral commission said 36 percent of voters had backed Donald Tusk, a pro-business candidate committed to stimulating entrepreneurship with low taxes and deregulation, while 33 percent had voted for Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, a former child actor who hopes to preserve a strong social safety net.

A state television exit poll indicated that Tusk finished with about 38 percent and Kaczynski with 32 percent. Turnout was nearly 50 percent.

If the results hold, the two candidates, both former activists with the anti-communist Solidarity movement, will be forced into a runoff on Oct. 23.

The Poles could hardly demonstrate any more convincingly that they aren't European, pitting an economic conservative vs a social conservative.

MORE:
The Germans on the other hand...Merkel to take German chancellery (BBC, 10/09/05)

Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed to a coalition deal that will make conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Angela Merkel chancellor.

But the SPD appears to have driven a hard bargain. Under the deal the party will take eight ministry posts, against a reported six for the conservatives.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 10, 2005 8:09 AM