Parties running in Poland's election hold final campaign rallies as polls suggest a close race

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The main party leaders facing off in Poland’s upcoming parliamentary election called on voters to give their respective parties winning support as they held final campaign rallies Friday. Opinion polls suggested a close race.

The election Sunday will decide whether the ruling conservative, Euro-skeptic Law and Justice party will win a third straight term or whether the liberal, pro-European Civic Coalition and its partners will take power. The Civic Coalition aims to improve Poland’s democratic standards and international standing that have suffered under eight years of a conservative government.

Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is Poland's de-facto ruler, met voters in southeastern Poland, where his party has a small edge over the opposition. His closing rally was held in the central market of the picturesque town of Sandomierz, the location of popular TV series “The Reverend Mateusz,” about an investigative priest. A majority of Law and Justice voters are practicing Catholics.

“We are the only political formation that guarantees that your voices will be heard,” Kaczynski told the crowd. He used the usual party slogans in his speech to draw chants of “YES" for his party's policies and “NO” for the opposition.

At the end he told voters that “Poland's prosperity and good opportunities for all ... depend on you, on Poland's citizens,” while every vote for the opposition is wrong.

Though his hometown is Warsaw, Kaczynski is running from the southern city of Kielce, where he can count on much larger backing than in the capital, where his archrival, Civic Coalition leader Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and former European Council president, is running. Voters in large cities have backed Tusk's party in recent votes and have shown...