Poland’s court rules polls result valid

WARSAW: Poland’s Supreme Court on Monday approved the result of last month’s hotly contested presidential election but said there had been dozens of irregularities.

President Andrzej Duda, who is backed by the ruling populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, narrowly won re-election on July 12 with 51 percent. His rival, Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski from the Civic Platform party, came a close second with 49 percent.

"The Supreme Court confirms the validity of the election of Andrzej Sebastian Duda to the Polish presidency," judge Ewa Stefanska said in her ruling on Monday. The opposition had asked for the result to be declared invalid, complaining in particular that the state television network TVP had favoured the incumbent.

The Supreme Court received more than 5,800 complaints, mainly related to voter registration, failure to receive ballots in time and problems with voting abroad. It upheld only 93 of the complaints, but said this was not sufficient to affect the final result of the vote.