Poland’s election on Sunday saw the incumbent, conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party fall short of the majority vote in partial results and exit polls, forging an opportunity for opposition parties to form the next government, should they join forces, Reuters reports.
The liberal party is pro-EU, while the incumbent party clashed with the Union since coming to power in 2015 over issues such as immigration and LGBT agendas. The liberal party vowed to reconcile with the EU and do away with policies that the conservative party established.
Donald Tusk, former EU president and leader of the liberal party Civic Coalition (KO) has said he aims to unblock around 110 billion euros of funds for Poland from the EU which had been frozen over rule-of-law concerns.
"The ousting of the nationalists will help to restore damaged relations with the EU," said Lee Hardman, a senior currency analyst at MUFG bank.
"The zloty should continue to strengthen further in the near-term in anticipation of improving relations with the EU that will help to support growth and attract capital inflows."
While the formation of a new government is weeks to months away and official results have yet to be announced, exit polls from the Sunday election showed that the PiS was not on track to gain the majority vote but was still leading with 37.5 percent when 63 percent of voting districts had been counted.
Civic Coalition (KO) had 28.6 percent, falling short of their projected 31 percent, and the center-right Third Way party, which is a KO ally, had 14.4 percent of the vote.
Opposition parties, however, are expected to join forces to generate the majority vote.
Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said after the poll results were published that if Polish president Andrzej Duda, who is a PiS ally, wishes for the party to continue governing, it will try to form a stable government despite not having the majority vote.
He stated to TVP info: “If the president entrusts the mission to the winning party’s candidate, we will try in all certainty to build a stable government which will lead Poland through the difficult reefs we face.”
He also said that on Monday, “we may wake up to entirely different numbers and that will create totally different prospects.”
When asked about other parties PiS would be open to joining forces with to achieve a majority vote, he responded “We are in a position to talk with anyone who shares our vision of Poland, who knows that a stable government is necessary for the good of our country, that all the disturbances ahead of us ... can be addressed in the proper way and settled through a stable governing coalition, not through a multi-colored coalition that has no common ground apart from a hatred of PiS.”
Meanwhile, President Duda has urged patience and has stated he will give the first shot of forming a government to the winning party, stating "We are waiting calmly, democracy in Poland is stable.”
He was also grateful for the 73 percent voter turnout this election saw, the highest since the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.
“I appealed for this turnout and ... thank you very much for it. Thank you very much to all my compatriots, to all of you who went to cast your vote,” he said in a statement, adding that the election is “a kind of test of how much of a democratic society we are, how mature a society we are, how much we are a society that has come of age.”
He stated he is hopeful the official results will be counted and announced by Monday.
