A fresh poll shows the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski capturing a six point lead over its nearest rival the liberal Civic Platform (PO) less than three weeks ahead of Poland's October 21 snap parliamentary elections, according to DPA. This PiS scored 28 per cent compared to the PO's 21 per cent and 12 per cent for the left-wing LiD coalition in an opinion survey by the independent OBOP pollsters for the Wednesday edition of Poland's public TVP1 Wiadomosci news. The result, which for the first time gives the PiS a substantial lead over archrival PO, comes on the heels of a high-profile televised debate on Monday between Prime Minister Kaczynski and ex- president Aleksander Kwasniewski, the face of the LiD campaign. A separate poll published last Saturday prior to the debate, showed the PO just 16 seats from an outright parliamentary majority. The PO scored 36.6 per cent of the vote ahead of the governing PiS, which took 35.7 per cent of the vote, the independent Warsaw- based Pentor pollsters found in a survey commissioned for the Wprost weekly news magazine. The left-wing LiD had 12.5 per cent of the vote. Other conservative and populist parties failed to pass the 5 per cent threshold required to enter parliament. After failing to form a stable majority in the wake of its narrow September 2005 election victory over the PO, Prime Minister Kaczynski forced the September 7 dissolution of parliament thus triggering the October 21 snap election.
