Poland opposition coalition set for majority in election, exit poll shows

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Poland’s opposition coalition is on course for a groundbreaking election victory that will bring the country closer to the European Union and roll back some of the outgoing government’s populist social reforms.

An exit poll released shortly after voting ended Sunday night showed the coalition led by Civic Platform will win a comfortable majority in parliament with 248 seats out of 460. The ruling Law and Justice party, or PiS, is forecast to win 200 seats, down from the 235 the party won in the 2019 election.

“Poland won, you won,” Civic Platform Leader Donald Tusk told a cheering crowd of supporters in downtown Warsaw. “We will create a new, good, democratic government with our partners in the near future.”

A final tally of votes is expected on Tuesday but if the exit poll is confirmed, as many expect, the result will end PiS’s eight years in power.

PiS swept into office in 2015 with a populist agenda that included cracking down on immigration, pursuing conservative social policies and increasing benefits for families. However, PiS leaders repeatedly clashed with the EU, which accused the Polish government of weakening democratic institutions and curtailing women’s rights. The disputes led the EU to withhold €110-billion ($158-billion) in funding to Poland.

The win also marks a major comeback for Mr. Tusk, who served as Poland’s prime minister from 2007 to 2014 and then spent five years in Brussels as president of the European Council, a key EU institution.

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During the campaign he promised to rebuild Poland’s relations with the EU and unblock the funding. He has also vowed to liberalize Poland’s restrictive abortion laws and dismantle PiS’s reforms to the judiciary and the public broadcaster, which critics say have been politicized by PiS.

“We need to mend the institutions that have been broken,” said Radoslaw Sikorski, a former foreign minister and Civic Platform supporter who is a member of the European Parliament. “We shall have a normal European government rather than a right-wing fantasy.”

Barbara Nowacka, a Civic Platform candidate, credited the opposition’s strong showing to female voters who rallied around issues like abortion. “I think many women voted because they felt like fighting for their own safety,” she said. “It’s a victory of equality. Never beforehand has gender equality been that visible in an election campaign.”

The exit poll showed that PiS won the largest share of the votes, taking 36.8 per cent of the total compared to 31.6 per cent for Civic Platform. However, two smaller parties that make up the opposition coalition – the centre-right Third Way and Left – won 13 per cent and 8.6 per cent, respectively, which put the opposition block over the top.

The far-right Confederation, which had been considered a possible coalition partner for PiS, fared poorly in the exit poll and won 6.2 per cent of the vote, which is expected to translate into 12 seats. The party had been polling as high as 12 per cent last summer.

Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, congratulated his supporters for winning the popular vote for the third consecutive election. “But we must have hope and know that regardless of whether we are in power or in opposition, we will implement this project in different ways,” he told the crowd. “And we will not allow Poland to be betrayed.”

The new government will face a host of immediate challenges.

The war in Ukraine continues to rage next door and the government will have to decide how much support it will offer Ukraine as well as the nearly one million Ukrainians who have fled to Poland. Anti-Ukrainian sentiment is building in Poland and Confederation tapped into the growing discontent by promising to cut all support for refugees. PiS also vowed to end many benefits in March, one year earlier than a date set by the EU.

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Ukraine and Poland have also been locked in a dispute over grain shipments. Kyiv had reached a deal with the EU to move grain out of Ukraine by trucks and trains, because the country’s Black Sea ports have been shelled by Russia. However, logistical challenges meant that much of the grain piled up in silos in Poland and other neighboring countries, driving local prices.

“Ukrainians should feel safe and we will have good contact and co-operation with the Ukrainian government,” Borys Budka, deputy chairman of Civic Platform, said Sunday. “We were always open for those contacts. So I’m quite sure that they can sleep well.”

The new administration will also have to grapple with a slumping economy and a soaring deficit.

Poland had enjoyed strong and steady growth for years, which allowed the government to boost spending and expand social benefits. But the economy has stalled this year partly because of the war and rising energy prices. Inflation also hit double digit levels this year, although in the latest reading, it fell to 8.2 per cent in September, down from 10.1 per cent in August.

There is also little fiscal room for the incoming administration. The PiS government boosted spending on child benefits, health care and defense. The annual deficit was forecasted to jump to 4.5 per cent of GDP this summer, compared to the 3.4 per cent in April.

Mr. Tusk made some ambitious spending pledges during the campaign, including increases to social benefits, boosting teachers’ pay by 30 per cent, cutting taxes and hiking subsidies for homeowners and renters. Whether his government can fulfill those promises will be among its first challenges.