During the pre-election weeks a few prominent politicians changed their party affiliations. One of the most popular conservative PO politicians, Jan Rokita, withdrew from political life altogether (before the 2005 elections he favoured the PiS-PO coalition), whereas his wife Nelly Rokita supported PiS in the campaign (in consequence, this support turned out to be problematic for PiS because many statements made by Nelly Rokita during the campaign were not in line with that party’s political programme). Many politicians who previously were members of PiS or were linked with PiS decided to support PO. Among them was former defence minister Radosław Sikorski and speaker of the Senate Bogdan Borusewicz (an anti-communist opposition activist before 1989). Just before the elections, PO received support from the former prime minister of the PiS-headed government Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a figure who then enjoyed high public support.
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