WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's main opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform, chose deputy parliament speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska as its presidential candidate Saturday.
Kidawa-Blonska will face the popular conservative incumbent, President Andrzej Duda, as well as candidates with smaller parties in the election expected to be held in the first half of next year.
"I will be the president of all Poles," she declared to party members after a secret vote in which 700 delegates chose her over Poznan Mayor Jacek Jaskowiak.
Kidawa-Blonska was the opposition's candidate for prime minister in a parliamentary election in October. The party lost to the ruling Law and Justice party.
Civic Platform led Poland from 2007-15, most of that time with Donald Tusk as prime minister before he left to become the European Union leader. The party oversaw economic expansion and even guided the country through the financial crisis of 2008 without Poland's economy falling into recession.
Kidawa-Blonska is seen as a moderate politician.
A Section on 12/15/2019