Poland is going to elect the next President this Sunday. The clear favourite is the incumbent Bronisław Komorowski, however, he has lost support in opinion polls during the campaign and now it is very unlikely he could win outright in the first round. He is expected to meet in the runoff with the candidate of the largest opposition party, Andrzej Duda. The race between smaller party and independent candidates is much more difficult to predict. In the beginning, right-wing perennial candidate and current MEP (in the last Euro-elections he surpassed the threshold for the first time) Janusz Korwin-Mikke was competing for the third place with a political newcomer Magdalena Ogórek of the formerly powerful Alliance of the Democratic Left (SLD). Recently, rock singer Paweł Kukiz has become the dark horse and some polls give him around ten percent of support.
So, the candidates are:
Bronisław Komorowski, the boring incumbent aligned with the ruling Civic Platform. His policies are generally centrist on both social and economic issues, and pro-European. He hasn't done much active campaigning and refused to participate in debates.
Andrzej Duda, the stooge of his party's leader. The policies of himself and his party, when compared with those of the government, are more left-wing on economy and more right-wing on socio-cultural issues. He is moderately Eurosceptic, and strongly Atlanticist and anti-Russian. His candidacy seems to be supported the most by the Catholic hierarchy.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke. Active in politics since the sixties, participated in most elections since the fall of communism - at all levels. He succeeded only twice: he was an MP between 1991 and 1993 (there was no election threshold back then) and was elected a MEP in 2014. Britons might have heard of him because some in UK were shocked by UKIP's co-operation with JKM's (former) party.
JKM, after leaving several political parties, most of which were founded by himself, finally settled on a party named after him: KORWiN.
His policies are a mix of libertarianism, conservatism, populism, and Godwin's law. If you oppose him, your views are Hitler's Hitlerite ideas.
Controversy is his bread and butter.
Magdalena Ogórek, the strange discovery of Leszek Miller (you may know him as the guy responsible for CIA prisons). His Alliance of the Democratic Left after winning with impressive 41% in 2011, had been demoted to a third party status in 2005, and in the 2014 European and local elections received only about 8%. The selection of a pretty TV presenter as their presidential candidate was expected to be a new beginning, but is likely to be the nail to the coffin of the Miller's party. Ogórek's policies are quite liberal on both social and economic issues. She avoids controversial radicalism, but nevertheless gained criticism by claiming that 'law should be rewritten'. She didn't manage to convince younger voters at whom her candidacy was aimed, while turning away the SLD's rank and file members and traditional supporters.
Paweł Kukiz. A popular rock singer and probably a nice guy, he embarked on a political career as a single issue candidate, and his issue is one of the dumbest possible. He claims that introducing a FPTP system in parliamentary elections would open up the political scene, make MPs actually responsible before voters and not their parties, and give independents a strong representation. Arguments that experience from countries which have this system generally show otherwise are dismissed by Kukiz. His campaign is generally built on the sentiment against the established political class (the 'neo-aristocracy' in Kukiz' own words) and the political parties.
Adam Jarubas. He is the candidate of the agrarian Polish People's Party (PSL), the junior coalition partner, and heads the provincial government of this party's stronghold, Świętokrzyskie. PSL is generally associated with cronyism, nepotism, corruption, electoral fraud, and ability to make deals with virtually everyone. Jarubas however tries to distance himself from this image. He talks much about the traditional peasants' pride, the Polish agrarian tradition (leaders such as interwar three-times PM Witos and the guy who tried to lead a legal opposition after the war, Mikołajczyk), and so on. Such a re-discovery of the PSL roots is quite interesting, but not necessarily convincing. Jarubas also tries to build on his local government experience and his relatively young age.
His ideology is socially conservative and economically left-leaning, and the major policy difference with Duda is foreign policy - Jarubas has been vocal about the negative economic impact of the sanctions against Russia, and opposes further involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.
Janusz Palikot. The guy who few years ago was a rising star, but by now he has plummeted to the status of political plankton. He describes himself as the only progressive among the candidates (not true, Tanajno is as socially left-wing as him, and Ogórek, while not so anti-clerical, is also a feminist). He focuses on secularism, socio-cultural progressivism, and European federalism (including the adoption of Euro as soon as possible). On economic issues, he takes a more moderate (some would say: undecided) approach; he criticises excessive bureaucracy, but also says that the state should take a more active role in fostering development.
And now we proceed to continue with the gallery of right-wingers (Korwin is above since he's likely to be third in this election, others are quite minor)
Grzegorz Braun, or the creepy one. Wants to crown Jesus as the King of Poland, opposes democracy because it means rule by freemasonry, supports "Nuremberg trials" for former communists, and admires Emperor Palpatine. What he cares most about is "Church, school, and shooting range". Oh, and he wants Poland to have WMDs. Braun is also notorious for his calls to shoot journalists from left-liberal media.
My views are kinda conservative, at least on some issues, but this guy is definitely insane.
Jacek Wilk, or the serious one. He is the candidate of the Congress of the New Right, the rump of the JKM's previous party. Wilk is essentially Korwin, but without the latter's controversial remarks on Hitler, women, shooting protesters, Hitler, disabled people, rape, and - last but not least - Hitler. Socially conservative, but focuses on economic issues, such as reducing the red tape and taxation. One policy difference with JKM I noticed is Wilk's support for building NATO bases in Poland.
Marian Kowalski, the most beautiful one
A bodybuilde and gym trainer, accused of assault. In his TV ad he appears at the gym and shouts at the camera that 'the leader must not be a loser' (the word was more vulgar in Polish, but I dunno how to translate it). He represents the far-right National Movement and used to be a Korwin disciple as well, but, quite interestingly, has decided to present himself as the heir of populists such as Stan Tyminski (the first official loony in Polish politics, also former leader of Canadian Libertarians, who met with Nobel laureate Wałęsa in the 1990 runoff) and late Andrzej Lepper rather than a young extremist inspired by pre-war National Radicals, which is a bit nice.And finally, we get back to the left. Or something like this.
Paweł Tanajno of the Direct Democracy party, formerly aligned with Palikot. His programme is, well, direct democracy: obligatory referenda on many issues, preferential voting, and the right to recall. It's surprising that he got the required 100,000 signatures to run for President. His opinions on most issues are rather leftish.
Also, he is active on Facebook where makes observers meditate on whether he's an idiot or a troll - with notorious spelling mistakes, being proud and defending those mistakes, and insulting random critics and their families. Nevertheless, some independent left-wingers as well as those believing in his ideas on direct democracy support him - even if they see him just as the least evil candidate.
So, does the NSG have a favourite?
I myself do not. None of the candidates convinces me, most annoy me with more or less issues.
If you have any questions on Polish politics, I will try to answer.
But my vote would go to Wilk 
Seems to be the only one with common sense and economics 101.
