Donald Tusk, who leads Poland’s centrist opposition coalition, claimed victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday evening, October 15. According to exit polls, the pro-European opposition won a parliamentary majority, crushing the populists of the current ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and the right-wing extremists.
According to these forecasts, the three centrist opposition parties Donald Tusk’s Citizens Coalition (KO), the Third Way Christian Democrats and the Left combined won 248 seats in the 460-member parliament, compared to 212 seats for PiS and the Confederation (far right) combined.
“Poland has won, democracy has won, we have driven them from power (…) it is the end of this bad time, it is the end of PiS rule,” declared Donald Tusk immediately after the polls were published.
PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said at a rally at party headquarters in central Warsaw that he did not immediately know whether Sunday’s results would lead to a new government mandate.
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