WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s main opposition presidential candidate was facing mounting criticism on Friday over his acquisition of an apartment from a vulnerable pensioner, as a poll showed a dip in support and the prime minister labelled him unfit for office.
The campaign of Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the nationalist opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, has been rocked by allegations that he lied about owning a second property and that he acquired it from a elderly man in return for a promise of care which he did not provide.
Nawrocki has called the reports that the elderly man ended up in a state-funded retirement home because he did not provide the care he promised in return for the flat “media lies”, but said on Wednesday he would give the property to charity.
“In the Polish state, such people… certainly should not seek the highest state honours, the highest dignities, such as the presidency,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday.
PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told parliament he believed the scandal had been orchestrated by Poland’s secret services to influence the election, without providing evidence.
A survey conducted by Pollster on May 7-8 for the Super Express tabloid showed that support for Nawrocki had dipped by more than 2 percentage points since its previous opinion poll in late April.
The poll put liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Tusk’s ruling Civic Coalition (KO), on 32.3% and Nawrocki on 22.7% ahead of the May 18 first round, with 52% of respondents saying the apartment furore would affect the election outcome.
Since the tough-talking amateur boxer-cum-historian entered the race for the presidency he has faced a deluge of negative coverage in liberal media outlets, including the discovery of a television interview in which he appeared in disguise under a pseudonym and praised his own work as a historian.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Alex Richardson)
