WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's conservative president, Andrzej Duda, promised Monday to protect traditional Polish values against LGBT rights after a first-round presidential election that gave him the most votes but forced him into a runoff.

Duda's immediate return to a theme that he has raised frequently during his campaign was an indication that he is heading into a tight runoff with Warsaw's centrist mayor by seeking to win the votes of those on the far right, not the political center.

Nearly complete results from Sunday's balloting show Duda, who is backed by the populist ruling Law and Justice party, winning nearly 44% of the votes.

In second place was Rafal Trzaskowski, the pro-European Union mayor, who won slightly over 30%.

The two will face each other in a July 12 runoff that is shaping up as a suspenseful standoff between two 48-year-old politicians who represent the sides of a bitter cultural divide.

Whether or not Duda wins will determine whether Law and Justice will keep its near- monopoly on power. Over the past five years the party has taken control of the country's judicial system in a way that the EU has denounced as violating democratic values.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the election, said that it was professionally run. But it also said public media, which heavily favored Duda, “failed in its duty to offer balanced and impartial coverage.”

“Inflammatory language by the incumbent and his campaign was at times xenophobic and homophobic,” the OSCE also said in a statement Monday.

While Trzaskowski trailed Duda on Sunday, in a runoff he would likely gain many voters from the nine other candidates who have now been eliminated, including a progressive Catholic independent, Szymon Holownia, who won won nearly 14%. 

Up for grabs will also be the nearly 7% of votes that went to a far-right candidate, Krzysztof Bosak.

On state radio Monday morning, Duda stressed how his values line up with those of Bosak, calling same-sex marriage “alien” and depicting Trzaskowski as “left-wing.”

Earlier this month, Duda said the LGBT rights movement promotes a viewpoint more dangerous than communism. Despite street protests in Poland and criticism from the EU and other foreign leaders, Duda appeared to be returning to that theme, though with slightly toned-down language.

He said “ideological materials” must be kept out of schools and said that any pro-LGBT materials in school would remind him of his childhood, when the communist regime taught children one ideology and children learned something else in their homes.

Trzaskowski's program calls for allowing same-sex civil partnerships but not marriage, and he has largely avoided the issue on the campaign trail.

He, too, has sought to win some of Bosak's voters by stressing their shared free-market views.

Bosak is a lawmaker with the party Confederation, which entered parliament for the first time last year on a program that is anti-American and anti-EU and opposes LGBT rights.

Dijo que los "materiales ideológicos" 

deben mantenerse fuera de las escuelas y dijo que cualquier material pro-LGBT 

en la escuela le recordaría su infancia, cuando el régimen comunista les enseñó a los niños una ideología y los niños aprendieron algo más en sus hogares.

El programa de Trzaskowski exige permitir las asociaciones civiles entre personas 

del mismo sexo pero no el matrimonio, y ha evitado en gran medida 

el tema en la campaña electoral.

Él también ha tratado de ganar a algunos de los votantes de Bosak haciendo hincapié en sus puntos de vista compartidos de libre mercado.

Bosak es legislador de la Confederación del partido, que ingresó al parlamento por primera vez el año pasado en un programa que es antiamericano y anti-UE y se opone a los derechos LGBT.