Exit poll shows that Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party have won the most votes for a single party in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, but failed to secure a majority that will enable it to stay in power for a third term.
The Ipsos exit poll gave PiS 36.8% of the vote, which means the party won 200 seats in the 460-seat Sejm or lower house of parliament, falling short of the 231 seats needed for a majority.
Meanwhile, it suggested that opposition parties, led by the liberal Civic Coalition (KO), together obtained 248 seats, with the KO scoring 31.6%.
“Democracy has won … This is the end of the PiS government,” KO leader Donald Tusk, 66, a former European Council president, told party members on Sunday evening.
Partial official results are scheduled to be published on Monday.
If the outcome is confirmed by official results, Tusk’s KO has a better chance of forming a coalition, ending eight years of nationalist rule.
Commenting on the exit poll conducted by Ipsos, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said his party’s result was a great success, but admitted he did not know whether that “will be able to be turned into another term in power.”
“We have to have hope that regardless of whether we are in power or in opposition, our project will continue … We will not let Poland lose … the right to decide its own fate,” Kaczynski told officials gathered at the party’s headquarters in central Warsaw on Sunday evening.
The predictions came amid reportedly mounting discontent in the former Soviet bloc country over democratic erosion and concerns over women’s rights and the cost of living. PiS denies eroding democratic standards.
The results have reportedly delighted Brussels as the three opposition parties, Tusk’s Civic Coalition, Third Way, and the New Left, have vowed to restore good ties with the European Union, bucking a trend of right parties getting closer to power all over Europe.
The head of the electoral commission said the turnout in Sunday’s general elections was probably the highest since the fall of communism in 1989.
Poles also voted for the upper house, the Senate, and took part in four referendums on Sunday.
