Poland looks set to head into a month of intense coalition-building. The exit poll for the country’s parliamentary election on Sunday showed Jarosław Kaczyński’s Law and Justice party with the single biggest result of 36.8 per cent, but it still fell short of being able to form a government by itself. Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition gained 31.6 per cent of the vote, followed by the Third Way with 13 per cent, the Left with 8.6 per cent, and Konfederacja with 6.2 per cent of the vote, respectively. The late poll released around 8 a.m. Polish time, which took account of around half of the election’s overall result, remained broadly consistent with these results.
The historic voter turnout of 72.9 per cent underscored the importance of this election to Poles. If the exit poll is correct, this is the largest turnout since communism fell, surpassing even the 62.7 per cent turnout in the first free elections of 1989. The number of Poles registered to vote abroad more than doubled since the last election, exceeding 600,000 overall, with over 160,000 registered to vote in the UK alone. Much of this record turnout is likely due to opposition campaign messaging, which focused heavily on the slogan that this election was a last stand for Polish democracy, for the rights of Polish women, and for a close relationship with the European Union.
As demographics shift, political preferences seem to be shifting towards the centre
As demographics shift, and voters born after the fall of communism become an ever-larger share of the electorate – the eldest are now moving into their early 30s – political preferences seem to be shifting towards the centre. According to the exit poll, 28.3 per cent of voters aged between 18 and 29 supported the Civic Coalition, while Law and Justice gained just shy of 15 per cent of the vote in that group. Voters over the age of 60 – a core electorate for Law and Justice – notably turned out in smaller numbers than the national average, at only 67 per cent. This likely made a significant difference to the overall result.
The Konfederacja party’s low overall results in the exit poll indicate that there is relatively little appetite on the conservative side of Polish politics for a radical right-wing libertarian party. But there is significantly more interest in a Law and Justice-type patriotic nationalist flavour of conservatism. The east-west divide of the country also remains alive and well, with the east voting overwhelmingly for Law and Justice, and the west for the opposition.
One complicating factor is the referendum on four key Law and Justice campaign issues that accompanied the vote. Poles were asked questions on illegal migration, the retirement age, and the border wall with Belarus. Donald Tusk called on opposition voters to refuse the ballot paper for the referendum so that it would miss the target 50 per cent participation which the Polish government would have required to make it binding. This tactic seems to have succeeded at thwarting the referendum: only around 40 per cent of those polled participated.
After such a close-run election, what comes next for Poland? President Duda will now almost certainly offer Law and Justice, as the party with the single largest mandate, the first chance at forming a government. The party will have two weeks to do so, and is unlikely to succeed, as the exit polls indicate it will only win just shy of 200 seats – 31 seats short of a parliamentary majority. Its only potential coalition partner is Konfederacja but the two together are still highly unlikely to reach the required 231 seats. None of the other parties are likely to want to work with Law and Justice, seen by the other parties as having improperly used its position as the governing party to influence its election campaign.
If Law and Justice fails to form a government, Duda will then offer the same opportunity to the opposition. Civic Platform, Third Way, and the Left are the three parties most likely to be able to form a coalition government. The exit poll scenario gives them a combined 53.2 per cent of the vote; such a government may or may not be led by Donald Tusk, depending on the outcome of internal negotiations.
The Third Way party is an interesting new arrival on the Polish political scene. Born of a union between Szymon Hołownia’s Poland 2050 party and the Polish People’s party, it is more socially conservative than the Citizens’ Coalition and the Left, and is not likely to support, for example, a significant liberalisation of abortion policy. The party may join a three-way ruling coalition, while also being a swing vote between conservative and liberal factions on key issues.
The emergence of the Third Way as a new political force in this election shows that the Poles are tiring of the bitter conflict between Law and Justice and the Civic Coalition. Of those polled in 2023 who admitted to non-participation in the previous election, 17.9 per cent admitted to voting for the Third Way.
The greatest underperformer of the election was the Left – notably also one of the parties which remained the most focused on its own electoral programme rather than a personal campaign. At the last election, the Union of the Democratic Left (as the party was known before its reconfiguration) won 12.56 per cent of the vote, compared to 8.6 per cent this year.
The rise of the more socially conservative Third Way and the decline in the socially liberal Left shows that Poland still has more appetite for ‘small c’ conservative centrism than radical left-wing politics. Law and Justice, however, has been unable to harness a significant share of this vote after eight years in government.
The key takeaway for Law and Justice seems to be the need to increase its popularity with the youth vote and win allies for potential future coalitions amongst smaller parties like the Third Way. As the party’s core retirement-age electorate diminishes, and Konfederacja-style libertarianism remains unpopular, Law and Justice will need to radically rethink its target audience, policy, and messaging if it wishes to remain a leading force in Polish politics going forward.
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