(7 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT REFILED AT 1400GMT TO IMPROVE FRAMING IN SOUNDBITES++

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Warsaw - 7 April 2024
1. Various of voters casting ballots and at voting booths

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Warsaw - 7 April 2024
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Vanessa Gera, AP correspondent:
"It's election day in Poland. Millions of people are voting for mayors and representatives to local and regional governments. In other words, the authorities closest to the lives of most people. The election is a test for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, just four months after he took power."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Warsaw - 15 October 2023
3. Wide of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on stage, crowd chanting “Donald, Donald”
4. Close of people clapping hands and cheering
5. Mid of people cheering
6. Wide of Tusk speaking on stage

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Warsaw - 7 April 2024
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Vanessa Gera, AP correspondent:
"Tusk's victory ended eight years of conservative rule that pushed Poland's democratic system to a breaking point. But it has not been easy for Tusk. In just one example, his promise to liberalise the country's strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives in his own coalition."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Warsaw - 7 April 2024
8. Mid of man voting
9. Close of ballots
10. Various of man registering at polling station

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Warsaw - 7 April 2024
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Vanessa Gera, AP correspondent:
"Tusk's party and the opposition Conservatives are the dominant groups and they are running neck-and-neck, according to polls. Runoff votes are expected in two weeks in cases where candidates for mayor don't reach 50%. But by Monday, we should have a fairly good idea of the relative balance of power in the country."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Warsaw, Poland - 14 October 2023
12. Mid of Polish flag
13. Various of people walking in street
STORYLINE:
Voters across Poland were casting ballots in local elections on Sunday in the first electoral test for the coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk nearly four months since it took power.

Voters will elect mayors as well as members of municipal councils and provincial assemblies, an important exercise in self-governance that is one of the great achievements of the democratic transformation that Poland made when it threw off communism 35 years ago.

In all there are nearly 190,000 registered candidates running for local government positions in the central European nation of 38 million people.

Runoff votes will take place two weeks later, on April 21, in cases where mayoral candidates do not win at least 50% of the vote in Sunday's first round.

Opinion polls released in the days ahead of the vote showed the two largest political formations running neck-and-neck: Tusk's Civic Coalition, an electoral coalition led by his centrist and pro-European Union Civic Platform party, and Law and Justice, a national conservative party that governed the country from 2015 until last year.

Several other groups trail the two main groups, including the Third Way coalition, the Left and the radical right-wing Confederation party.

Tusk's coalition government, which includes the Third Way and the Left, together won the national election in October.

The result amid record turnout spelled the end of eight bumpy years of rule by Law and Justice, which was accused by the European Union of violating democratic standards with its changes to the judicial system and public media.







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