The parliamentary elections held this Sunday in Poland have opened a gap for change. The governmental Law and Justice party (PiS) is emerging as the most voted force, but according to exit polls it is very far from the absolute majority and its natural partner, the extreme right, does not guarantee it the parliamentary majority that it would have. the opposition coalition. Projections give PiS a range of between 35% and 36.8% or the equivalent of 200 seats out of the 460 in Parliament. Konfederacja (Confederation of Freedom and Independence) would have obtained 6.2% of the votes 12 seats.
In contrast, the Civic Coalition (CO), led by the former president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, would obtain between 31.6% of the votes or 163 seats, 34 more than it had. This gives it a wide margin of maneuver, since together with the center-right Third Way party, which would achieve 55 seats, and Nueva Izquierda, with 30, they would add 248 seats.
Exit polls in Poland usually have a margin of error of 2%, so no major changes are expected as the scrutiny progresses. The official results, however, will not be known until Tuesday, once the vote cast abroad is computed and in Germany alone there are 600,000 Poles with the right to vote.
The first images of the election night on Polish television from PiS headquarters showed the party’s head, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, along with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other members of the Government celebrating the prospects of a victory.
Minutes later, cameras showed an exultant Tusk proclaiming at party headquarters that “democracy has won… This is the end of the PiS government.”