Duda, Andrzej Sebastian

Duda, Andrzej Sebastian änˈjā sĕbäsˈtyän do͞odä [key], 1972–, Polish political leader, Ph.D. Jagiellonian Univ., Kraków, 2005. A member of the former Freedom Union party, he joined the Law and Justice party (PiS) after the 2005 parliamentary elections, becoming undersecretary of state at the ministry of justice (2006–7) and then in the office of President Lech Kaczyński (2008–10). He also was a member of the state tribunal (2007–11) and served on the Kraków city council (2010–11) and in the Sejm, Poland's lower house of parliament (2011–14) and the European Parliament (2014–15). In 2015 Duda was elected president of Poland after a runoff, defeating the incumbent, Bronisław Komorowski. Although Duda generally supported the PiS government that subsequently came to power, he vetoed (2017) legislation that would have given the government control over judge selection and sitting supreme court justices. He won election to a second term in 2020, again after a runoff.

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