Turnout Sunday’s vote saw the highest turnout in the country’s 34 years of democracy, surpassing the record 63% turnout in the 1989 poll that abolished communism.
Poland’s Warsaw According to forecasts made on Monday, the majority of voters in Poland’s general election favored opposition parties that pledged to restore the country’s constitutional order and its connections with allies like the European Union and Ukraine.
Voters came out in droves on Sunday to express their opinions after a contentious and emotional campaign. The highest level of participation in the nation’s 34 years of democracy was achieved, surpassing the historic turnout of 63% in the 1989 election that brought an end to communism.
For long hours, no one could have predicted the outcome. But after eight years of divisive policies that resulted in frequent street protests, acrimonious divisions even within families, and billions of euros in funding withheld by the EU due to rule of law violations, a so-called late exit poll by Ipsos suggested that voters had finally grown tired of the ruling nationalist party, Law and Justice.
The poll revealed that a clear majority of 248 seats, or about half of the 460 seats in the Sejm, had been won by three moderate opposition parties that ran on a platform of stopping the government’s illiberal trend.
Magdalena Chmieluk, a 43-year-old accountant, declared on Monday morning, “I am really overjoyed now.” We “will form a government with the opposition and can finally live in a normal country, for real.”
However, weeks of political uncertainty remained a reality for Poles on Monday. The winning party, Law and Justice, pledged to continue in power after receiving more votes than any other party.
In an interview with RMF FM radio on Monday morning, Law and Justice campaign manager Joachim Brudzinski declared, “Regardless of how you look at it, we won.
He declared that Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister, would lead an effort by his party to form a government.
Within 30 days of the election, President Andrzej Duda, a supporter of Law and Justice, is required to convene the first meeting of the new parliament and name a prime minister in an effort to form a government. The existing administration will continue to serve as a caretaker in the interim.
In the democratic era, it has been customary for the president to select a member of the winning party first, though this is not compulsory.
Unless Law and Justice was able to persuade some MPs from the opposition parties, as it has in the past to keep the slim parliamentary majority it enjoyed for eight years, it was unclear how it could actually retain power. But given the enormous number needed to switch allegiances, that appeared implausible.
The opposition Civic alliance, led by former European Council President Donald Tusk, received 31% of the vote, followed by Law and Justice (36.6%), the centrist Third Way alliance (13.5%), the Left party (8.6%), and the far-right Confederation (6.4%), according to the Ipsos survey.
According to the electoral commission, the final results should be reported by early Tuesday.
On Sunday night, Tusk stated that Poland’s era of Law and Justice was over and that a new one had begun.
On Monday, several Polish media outlets were more circumspect, just stating that the opposition might seize power.
Vice-chairman of Tusk’s party Cezary Tomczyk declared that the ruling party would make every effort to hold onto power. He urged it to do so, arguing that it was the will of the people to give the opposition control of the government.