Poland Acting President Komorowski Ahead in Election

Exit polls in Poland suggest the country's acting leader has won most votes in an election held after the death of President Lech Kaczynski.

Polls gave Bronislaw Komorowski up to 46% of the vote, short of the 50% needed for an outright win and making a run-off election likely on 4 July. He beat Mr Kaczynski's brother, Jaroslaw, into second place with 36%.

Lech Kaczynski was one of 96 people who died in a plane crash in Smolensk in western Russia on 10 April. The dead included many of Poland's political and military leaders, and the disaster has overshadowed the election campaign and made it one of the country's least aggressive, BBC Warsaw correspondent Adam Easton said.

The disaster has also boosted the ratings of the late president's twin, Jaroslaw, a combative conservative former prime minister who was voted out of office three years ago. His personal loss has changed him, according to BBC News, and he is presenting himself as a man of compromise.

Mr Kaczynski voted on Sunday in Warsaw accompanied by his late brother's daughter and two granddaughters. But the front-runner was always the government's candidate, Bronislaw Komorowski, who is a member of the ruling Civic Platform party.

The centre-right parliamentary speaker, who is now the acting president, says his whole career proves that he is a man who can unite the nation.

Both candidates appealed to national unity during an election overshadowed by April's plane crash and recent floods that killed 24 people and forced thousands from their homes. Voting started at 6 am (0400 GMT) and closed at 8 pm.

The first exit polls were released when the polls closed. The final result is due today.

More than 30 million of Poland's 38 million citizens were registered to vote.