Poland waits for final election result after ruling party, opposition claim win
- Sunday’s parliamentary election was seen as the most pivotal in Poland in decades
- Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk declared the beginning of a new era
Poles faced a period of political uncertainty on Monday after they voted in huge numbers in an election in which opposition parties appeared to gain a combined majority.
But the ruling nationalist conservative party won more votes than any single party and said it would try to keep governing.
The state electoral commission hasn’t reported the final results. But polling agency Ipsos released a so-called late poll Monday morning, which combined the results of an exit poll carried out during Sunday’s election and 50 per cent of the votes counted.
The poll results showed the ruling nationalist conservative Law and Justice party with 36.6 per cent of the votes cast, the opposition Civic Coalition, led by Donald Tusk, with 31 per cent, the centrist Third Way coalition with 13.5 per cent, the Left party with 8.6 per cent and the far-right Confederation with 6.4 per cent.
“Democracy has won,” Tusk, a former European Union chief declared late on Sunday, saying a “grim” era had ended.
In order for a government to pass laws, it needs at least 231 seats in the 460-lower house of parliament, the Sejm.
The exit poll showed 248 seats, meaning a majority in parliament, going to Civic Coalition, Third Way and the Left together.
According to Ipsos, the ruling Law and Justice party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski appeared to have obtained 198 seats, a sharp fall from the current slim majority it has held for the past eight years. Even with the far-right Confederation party, it would not have a majority.
Still, the party’s campaign manager, Joachim Brudzinski, said Monday morning in an interview on the RMF FM radio broadcaster that his party won and would try to build a government led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
“No matter how you look at it, we won,” Brudzinski said.
It will fall to President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice, to tap a party to try to build a government.
Cezary Tomczyk, vice-chairman of Tusk’s party, said the governing party would do everything to try to maintain power. He called on it to accept the election result saying it was the will of the people to hand over power to the opposition.
“The nation spoke,” Tomczyk said.
The election campaign was characterised by personal attacks on Tusk by the ruling party, which has accused him of working in the interests of Germany, Russia and the EU.
Law and Justice party also ramped up anti-migrant rhetoric, with Morawiecki saying the country should be protected against illegal immigrants “who have no respect for our culture”.
Ukraine and its Western supporters have been watching the Polish election closely.
Poland has been a leading cheerleader for Ukraine in the EU and Nato and has taken in a million Ukrainian refugees, but there is growing fatigue among many Poles.
The electoral commission said it expected to report the final result by early Tuesday.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
