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 Exit polls covering 90 percent of polling stations showed three
smaller parties, including the leftwing alliance that grew out of
the pre-1989 Communist Party, teetering on the edge of the threshold
for entering parliament.
That might make for some political horsetrading over the next few
weeks but will not weaken the decisive swing towards Law and
Justice's brand of social conservatism mixed with left-leaning
economics. Official results are due on Tuesday.
The victory for Jaroslaw Kaczynski's group returns it to power for
the first time in eight years and is the biggest in terms of seats
by a single party in free elections since Poland shed communism in
1989.
The party immediately signaled plans to reap new revenues from next
year with a tax on bank assets, and there were also signs that it
was confident of enough informal support in parliament from other
parties to plan changes to Poland's constitution.
"Many party leaders have talked of wanting deeper change in Poland
so, if we want to deliver that, changes to the constitution are
vital," the party's spokesman on economic affairs, Zbigniew Kuzmiuk,
told Polish public radio.
Shares in some of Poland's biggest banks fell sharply on Monday but
the zloty was only marginally lower, reflecting the assumption of
many investors over the past month that a PiS victory was likely.
Poland has seen its economy, the largest in ex-communist central
Europe, expand by nearly 50 percent in the last decade, with the
pro-market Civic Platform focusing on trying to make the most of EU
aid and combining green-field investment with fiscal prudence.
But pockets of poverty and economic stagnation remain, and PiS was
able to exploit growing frustration in some areas that the fruits of
economic success are not more evenly shared.
ANGER AND DISAPPOINTMENT
Distrustful of the EU and an advocate of a strong NATO stance in
dealing with Moscow, PiS opposes joining the euro zone any time soon
and promises more welfare spending on the poor.
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It also wants to enshrine more Roman Catholic values in law,
reflecting the party's deeply socially conservative stance. Those
ideas are broadly supported by the other big winner in Sunday's
polls, an anti-establishment grouping led by rock star Pawel Kukiz.
"If it turned out that we are a few seats short (of a majority), I
would prefer a stable cooperation, and the first natural partner is
Mr Kukiz," Jaroslaw Gowin, who leads one of the smaller allied
groupings with which PiS fought the election, told Polsat News TV.
"If Kukiz decides otherwise, then we'd have to bet on a scenario of
a minority government," said Gowin, who PiS officials say will most
likely be the new defense minister.
The latest exit poll by IPSOS, gave PiS 37.7 percent of the vote,
translating to 232 seats in the 460-member lower house of
parliament. Kukiz was on course to secure around 40 seats.
The final numbers could fall further if a handful of smaller parties
exceed vote thresholds for getting into parliament.
Kukiz told Radio Zet he did not plan to enter a coalition, but
Polish political commentators assume that Law and Justice will be
able to count on at least some of the group's MPs in parliament.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Adrian Krajewski, Writing by
Patrick Graham and Wiktor Szary; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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