Liberal Bronislaw Komorowski scored 52.63 percent of votes with returns from 95.1 percent of polling stations counted in Poland's snap presidential election, the state election commission said Monday.


WARSAW, July 5, 2010 (AFP) - Polish ex-premier Jaroslaw Kaczynski conceded defeat Sunday in a presidential vote forced by his identical twin's air-crash death, after results indicated he had lost to rival Bronislaw Komorowski.

"I congratulate the winner. I congratulate Bronislaw Komorowski," the eurosceptic Kaczynski said in a speech at his Warsaw headquarters, as supporters gasped when the figures were revealed the moment voting ended.

Komorowski, the acting president and the candidate for Poland's governing liberals, won 52.63 percent of the vote to conservative Kaczynski's 47.37 percent, according to results from 95.1 percent of polling stations presented by Poland's state election commission in the small hours of Monday.

Earlier results from 51.5 percent of polling stations had briefly put Kaczynski in the lead with 50.41 percent of the vote against 49.59 for Komorowski.

Full official results were to be made public Monday afteroon, a senior election official said.

President Lech Kaczynski died on April 10 when his jet crashed in Smolensk, western Russia as it landed for a World War II commemoration. A total of 96 people died, among them his wife, senior politicians and military top brass.

A run-off between Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Komorowski -- who as parliamentary speaker became acting president after the crash -- was held after neither won more than 50 percent in a first round of voting two weeks ago.

At Komorowski's Warsaw base, supporters chanted a traditional song urging him to live to 100.

"The ballots are being counted. We're opening a small bottle of champagne today, and we'll open a big one tomorrow," said Komorowski.

Official results are due Monday for the former communist nation of 38 million people, which was left reeling from the crash and then battered in May and June by the worst floods in decades.

The run-off between the hardball Kaczynski, 61, and soft-spoken Komorowski, 58, marked the latest chapter in a bitter power struggle between their parties.

"Divisions are an inseparable part of democracy," said Komorowski. "But we have work to do to ensure these divisions don't prevent cooperation".

Both sides had campaigned to the wire.

Lech Kaczynski came from behind to beat liberal Donald Tusk -- now prime minister -- in the 2005 presidential race.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the eurosceptic Law and Justice party, was premier in 2006-2007 but lost a general election to Tusk and Komorowski's Civic Platform.

Thereafter, Law and Justice counted on Lech Kaczynski, who used presidential veto powers 18 times to block the liberals' laws.

With an eye on core conservatives -- older, small-town or rural residents, in contrast with younger, urban liberals -- the twins battled welfare reforms and a new privatisation drive.

The liberals underscore that Poland was alone in the 27-nation European Union in posting economic growth last year.

Analysts have said a liberal win will test the Tusk government's mettle.

"Of course there will be no excuse not to push through reforms when Komorowski comes in," Danske Bank economist Lars Christensen told AFP. "His main excuse, the former president, will no longer be there".

Lech Kaczynski had been expected to seek a second five-year term in an autumn ballot but was tipped to lose to Komorowski.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski struggled to shed his own divisive image.

"I voted for Komorowski," said Leszek Maslankiewicz in Praga, a working-class Warsaw district. "He's not anarchic and doesn't make gaffes".

Turnout was 55.29 percent, the electoral official said. Fifty-five percent had voted in a June 20 first round.

Komorowski took 41.5 percent of the vote two weeks ago -- he needed 50 percent to win outright -- to Kaczynski's 36.5 percent.

Both men courted the electorate of a Social Democrat who came third but polls showed his voters swung solidly to Komorowski.

Kaczynski has long been known for broadsides against the Social Democrats, spun from the communist party after its regime fell in 1989. He raised eyebrows in his campaign by praising a past communist leader as a patriot.

The vote was a key test before municipal polls later this year and a parliamentary election in 2011.

"This was a great rehearsal" Kaczynski told supporters.

"We have to continue changing Poland: there are elections ahead of us, local and parliamentary. We have to continue to be mobilised, we must win," he said.

"At this moment, I'd like to mention those thanks to whom we are here: My brother and the others who died in the Smolensk catastrophe," he added. "A movement has emerged from their martyrs' death."

The election was watched closely elsewhere in the EU, which Poland joined in 2004, because the Kaczynskis regularly clashed with fellow leaders.