Poland appears to be entering a new four-year period of sovereignty under Kaczynski’s leadership: exit polls from today’s vote, immediately after polls close at 9 p.m., give the lead to sovereigntist Jaroslav Kaczynski’s party, Law and Justice (PiS). who has been in power since 2015. However, with 36.8 percent of the vote (in 2019 he won with 44%), he will not be able to form a majority on his own and will therefore have to look for a coalition. While it is possible that the majority will be won by a hypothetical pro-European coalition led by Donald Tusk and supported by two smaller coalitions that have done very well (again according to the election polls).
On the left, the coalition of the pro-European Citizens’ Coalition, led by former President of the European Council Donald Tusk, is challenging Kaczinsky and noted yesterday outside the elections that “we are once again voting for our fundamental rights, our fundamental values”. ». His Citizens’ Coalition According to election polls, the party got 31.6 percent of the vote, which is 163 seats. While with the proportional representation system that regulates the election of the chamber, rival Kaczynski’s PiS wins 200.
Today, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. – as well as for a referendum on immigration – we voted for the renewal of the National Assembly, composed of the Chamber (Sejm) and the Senate: 560 seats, including one hundred senators, who will have to make their new one Express government. And in doing so, they decide, among other things, on Warsaw’s new positioning vis-à-vis Brussels, after two sovereignist-led legislative periods in which there were, among other things, tensions with the Union due to the politicization of the judiciary, the subjugation of the public media and the rule of law, but also migration issues and the Relations with neighboring Ukraine. But according to election polls, Kaczynski does not have an absolute majority.
What is crucial is one party and two smaller alliances. Konfederatija, a far-right, racist and homophobic party that wants to cut military aid to Ukraine, got 6.2 percent of the vote, according to exit polls, less than expected, and for observers it was the deciding factor. The ruling Law and Justice party has so far ruled out an alliance with it, just as the Konfederatija has ruled out an alliance with the Pis; Not even by forming an alliance could they achieve an absolute majority in the chamber, with 200 seats plus 12 seats from the Konfederatija.
Conversely, two smaller coalitions have weight in the progressive faction: the newly founded center-right “Third Way” coalition with an agricultural orientation, which according to election polls has 13%, i.e. 55 seats, and the social democratic “Left”, pro-European and progressive , with 8.6% or 30 seats. Before the vote, they had declared that they would ally themselves with Donald Tusk’s progressive front, which would thus have 248 seats: an absolute, although not large, majority of the 460 seats that make up the chamber.