© Reuters/Kacper PempelAndrzej Duda, Poland's president elect
Youthful energy and rhetoric for change have seen Andrzej Duda transformed from a virtual unknown to the rising star of Eastern European politics - but his presidency could set Poland against Russia and the EU.
On Sunday, 51.6 percent of the electorate cast their votes for Duda to replace the centrist incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski, with a turnout of 55.4 percent, according to the official results. Exit polls showed that over 60 percent of rural voters supported Duda, but only about 40 percent of those live in cities.
Like the last president from the Law and Justice party and Duda's idol, the late Lech Kaczynski, who held the office from 2005 to 2010, the new Polish leader won by appealing to voters from the traditional heartlands - Catholics, social conservatives, farmers, and those left behind by Poland's superficially stellar economic performance in the last decade.
His promises have been wildly populist: Duda said he would lower the retirement age, which rose to 67 in 2012, raise income tax brackets, and force banks to turn lucrative Swiss franc mortgages into manageable Polish zloty ones, costing them billions of dollars in profit.
Duda's critics have dismissed his proposals as contradictory, unfeasible, and even illegal. Indeed, as president he does not have the power to ride roughshod over prime ministerEwa Kopacz and parliament, which is dominated by her centrist Civic Platform party, at least until autumn's parliamentary election. His actual responsibilities for now will be mainly vetoing unacceptable legislation, and representing Poland at international meetings.
© Reuters/Pawel KopczynskiAndrzej Duda (centre L), presidential candidate of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), poses for a picture with passerbys outside a subway station in central Warsaw, Poland May 25, 2015.
Comment: Like any newly elected politician, one has to take what they say during an election with a grain of salt. It will be his actions in office that will really show who he's beholden to.