Poland: last days of presidential campaigning. Duda signs draft amendment forbidding same-sex couple adoption

Poland’s Head of State Andrzej Duda, 48, who has held this post since 2015 and is one of two candidates in the presidential run-off next Sunday, 12 July, has today signed a draft amendment to the constitution aimed at “forbidding the adoption of children by same-sex couples”. “I will do all I can for the Polish families”, Duda said, underlining the “many programmes initiated during his mandate to support families”. The liberal-conservative opposition candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski (48 as Duda), who had initially allowed the adoption of children by same-sex couples in his electoral manifesto, has recently ruled it out, perhaps to be more closely in line with the prevailing public opinion. The two candidates are very close in opinion polls, with Duda having a lead of just 1 percentage points over his rival. In these last days of fierce electoral campaigning, the incumbent President, among other things, has accused the German press of “illegally trying to meddle in Poland’s presidential election to tip the vote in favour of the candidate who opposes demanding WWII reparations” from Germany - an issue that, according to Berlin, has already been settled by the 1990 Treaty.
Valentina Bombelli