Abstract
The research of the Polish presidential elections is important for political science due to the tendency of the political parties to emphasize its significance to a bigger extent than the actual Polish political system defines its importance. In this article we aimed at answering the questions whether the Polish presidential elections in 2015 and subsequent presidential election could be considered second-order elections based on the concept of Reif and Schmitt and why Komorowski was unable to defend his presidential mandate in the first round as it was suggested by the opinion-polls and eventually lost the presidential bid to Andrzej Duda.
The article depicts the concept of Reif and Schmitt and applies their concept to the Polish presidential elections in 2015.We considered the election subjected to analysis in the context of the political system of Poland and the current political situation. In the conclusion we also examined the position of the 2015 presidential elections in Poland within the context of the recent presidential elections in Central Europe.
The authors argued, that despite some trends suggesting the shift of presidential elections towards second-order elections, the higher voter turnout in the second round of presidential elections compared to the parliamentary elections suggest that the 2015 presidential elections should be considered as one of the country's first-order elections. Based on the analysis of the current political circumstances the authors consider the public's fatigue with the long mandate of the Civic Platform, the successful oppositional strategy of PiS to nominate the relatively unknown Andrzej Duda instead of the controversial Jaroslaw Kaczyński and the tempting electoral appeal of Pawel Kukiz opposed to the establishment as the causes related to Komorowski's defeat.
The 2015 Polish presidential elections ended with an initially unexpected result and foreshadowed the results of the following parliamentary elections.