WARSAW, June 25 (Reuters) - The junior partner in Poland's coalition government declined on Friday to back the main ruling party's candidate in the presidential election but a leading lawmaker said the decision did not threaten the coalition.
The small Peasants’ Party (PSL) said it had decided against endorsing either Bronislaw Komorowski of the ruling pro-business Civic Platform (PO) or Jaroslaw Kaczynski of the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) in the July 4 run-off vote.
"We want to let our supporters vote on their own. They need to make their own decision (in the second round)," PSL leader Waldemar Pawlak, who is also Poland’s economy minister and deputy prime minister, told a news conference.
Pawlak said both candidates had expressed support for PSL priorities such as cutting taxes for the lower paid and ensuring that Poland’s farmers benefited as much as possible from the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Pawlak was PSL’s own candidate in the first round of the election last Sunday but won less than 2 percent of the vote.
Komorowski won the first round by just five percentage points and both he and Kaczynski are keen to pick up as many votes as they can from candidates eliminated from the race.
PO lawmaker Andrzej Halicki, head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, played down Pawlak’s announcement.
"The coalition is not in danger," he told Polsat television, adding that he thought PSL voters would switch to Komorowski.
Some analysts expressed surprise at Pawlak’s decision.
"He is breaking the rules. He is a member of the coalition so he should really give his support to Komorowski," said Iwona Jakubowska-Branicka, a sociologist at Warsaw University.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who heads PO, said earlier this week he expected the current coalition to last until the end of this parliamentary mandate next year and that he hoped his party and PSL would continue to cooperate in the new parliament too.
The ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance, whose candidate came third in the first round of the election, is expected to announce early next week whom it will support in the run-off.
Financial markets would prefer a Komorowski victory because he is seen working smoothly with the Tusk government as it battles to reduce Poland’s budget deficit and public debt and prepares the country for eventual euro entry.
Kaczynski, twin brother of President Lech Kacyznski who was killed in a plane crash in April, has called for higher state spending and wants to delay euro adoption.
