2023-10-16 14:38 update: 2023-10-18, 14:53
Andrzej Duda. Photo PAP/Andrzej Lange
Andrzej Duda, Poland's president, has said all elections are a test of how democratically mature a society is, and thanked all Poles who voted in Sunday's elections to parliament and the Senate.
Duda went on to say that the general election had been marked by a "gigantic turnout," which he said had been the highest in the long history of a free, independent and sovereign Poland. Preliminary data released by the National Electoral Commission on Monday put the turnout at over 70 percent.
The president said he had appealed to Poles to take part in the ballot and was grateful for their participation, in particular that the vote had been conducted in an orderly and peaceful manner despite the high turnout.
The president highlighted that there had been "many fears" around the election.
"You know that there is a war situation, that we have a war beyond our eastern border, that we have a hybrid attack from Belarus, that there were very many potential possibilities of interference in our elections in various ways," he said, going on to thank all those who had safeguarded Poland's security.
He said that every election "is its own kind of test of how democratic a society, mature a society we are, of how robust we are as a society."
Duda also said that it was important to wait for the official final election results, which are expected to be announced on Tuesday afternoon. (PAP)
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