An opposition win would be a dramatic shift for a place where the government has controlled the courts and media, targeted LBGTQ+ rights, and undermined the union.
Poland’s political opposition ecstatically declared victory in the country’s most pivotal election since the fall of the Berlin Wall, after an exit poll suggested that while the ruling hard-right party had placed first, the opposition had a far clearer path to forming a governing coalition.
If the exit poll holds true, observers say, the election result would have major implications for Polish democracy, European unity and the West’s effort to confront Russian aggression. People wait in line to cast their ballot during parliamentary elections in Warsaw, Poland, on Sunday evening.Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the party’s leader and the country’s deputy prime minister, seemed to acknowledge a tough road to forming a new government. “The question is whether this success will be able to be turned into another term of office,” he told supporters.
“The Polish middle class has mobilised to keep us a European democracy,” Radek Sikorski, a Polish member of the European Parliament and former foreign minister, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Huge turnout in metropolitan areas, demotivated traditionalist south-east. In these dark times forces of light need a break and it looks like Poland might provide it.”
The highly charged election campaign included some of the largest rallies on Warsaw’s streets since the restoration of democracy three decades ago, and the exit poll suggested a record-high turnout of 73 per cent. Some polling stations with long lines remained open into the night. In the run-up to the election, analysts said Law and Justice had tipped the odds in its favour by exerting control over the media, pushing through new electoral rules that catered to its core constituencies and tacking on a controversial referendum to stoke support.Among the four referendum questions, voters were asked whether “you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa”. The opposition encouraged voters to boycott the referendum.
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