New President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski

According to official results, Komorowski got 53.01% and marked a narrow win against conservative candidate Jarowslaw Kaczynski, who recorded. Turnout was high at 55.31%.

Komorowski was born in 1952 in a family of aristocratic descent. He is the son of Count Zygmunt Leon Komorowski (1924–1993) and Jadwiga Komorowska (1921–).

He has graduated from Warsaw University with a degree in history and has later taught history at a seminary.

In the 1970s, Bronislaw Komorowski was arrested several times by the communist regime in Poland for dissident activities, and in 1981-1983 he was sent to an internment camp while Poland was under martial law. He and his wife Anna have five children.

Komorowski has been a member of parliament since 1989. In 2000-2001 he served as Defense Minister.

He became the Marshal (speaker) of the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament in 2007, as his party, the centrist liberal party Civic Platform of Donald Tusk won the 2007 general elections beating the conservative Law and Justice party of incumbent Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski.

As President Lech Kaczynski perished in a plane crash together with an entire Polish government delegation in Russia in April en route to a remembrance ceremony for the Katyn Massacre, Komorowski became Acting President of Poland in his capacity as Marshal of the Sejm.

Subsequently he managed to beat by a narrow margin for the presidency Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who decided to run in the wake of his twin brother's death.

Komorowski is known to be very close with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and as President he is expected to work smoothly with the government of the liberal Civic Platform; this will be a notable shift from the presidency of Lech Kaczynski who vetoed 18 laws put forth by the ruling party during his term in office in accordance with the agenda of his conservative Law and Justice party.

Tags: Bronislaw Komorowski, Donald Tusk, Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland, Presidential elections