Polish opposition gets first opportunity at forming new govt

Polish opposition gets first opportunity at forming new govt

The ruling Law and Justice party won most of the votes but fell short of an election majority.

Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition party, New Left, and Third Way said they will begin coalition government talks once the election results are published. (AP pic)
WARSAW:
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party won most of the votes in yesterday’s national election but fell short of a majority, final official results showed today, confirming that the liberal, pro-European Union opposition is on track to form the next government.

The official results from 100% of voting districts gave PiS, a nationalist, socially conservative party, 35.38% of the vote, while the liberal Civic Coalition (KO) was in second place with 30.70%.

The centre-right Third Way took third place with 14.40% and the New Left had 8.61% of the vote. The far-right Confederation had 7.16% of the vote, the results showed.

The Civic Coalition, New Left, and Third Way have said that they are ready to form a coalition government and that they will start talks once the official results are published.

President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, said before the vote that he would hand the first shot at forming a new government to the winning party, but PiS will struggle to find allies, with the Confederation probably getting too few seats to help.

KO and its allies are also set to win a clear majority in the 100-seat upper chamber of parliament, the Senate, elected on a first-past-the-post system, the official results showed.

The three opposition parties had presented a single list of candidates for the upper house.

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