Polish right 'set for poll victory'
Polish voters, fed up with the sleaze-ridden left-wing government, were expected to cast their ballots today for two centre-right parties that promise tax cuts and clean government.
Some 30 million people in the nation of 38 million, the biggest of 10 countries hat joined the European Union last year, were eligible to vote.
The Civic Platform and Law and Justice parties were neck and neck in opinion polls ahead of the governing Democratic Left Alliance, whose support has dropped so low that it was not even certain of clearing the 5% threshold to enter parliament.
By 4.30pm (3.30pm Irish time), turnout had reached 27.79%, said Ferdynand Rymarz, head of the State Electoral Commission. “Unfortunately, the turnout is very low,” he said.
Today’s is the fifth fully free parliamentary election since the transition from communism to multiparty democracy in 1989.
No government since then has won re-election, and power has swung back and forth between reformed communists and parties rooted in the anti-communist Solidarity movement.
Although the Democratic Left Alliance Party came to power with 41% support in 2001 and saw the country into the European Union last year, its popularity has plummeted amid a string of scandals and its failure to cut a jobless rate of 17.8% – the highest in the EU.
Even though the government has seen some successes – including strong economic growth and last year’s entry into the EU – those haven’t bought them the gratitude of the public, which has grown increasingly frustrated at the lack of job prospects and corruption.
It was unclear which of the two leading parties – the economically liberal Civic Platform or the socially conservative Law and Justice – would emerge with the upper hand. Both have said they would form a coalition.
Civic Platform long enjoyed the lead in opinion polls as it pledged to reduce state bureaucracy and push for a 15% flat-rate income tax.
But it has been overtaken in some surveys by Law and Justice, which wants less drastic tax cuts and the preservation of many welfare-state protections, strengthened by more tax exemptions for large families.
Pope Benedict XVI – successor to Polish-born John Paul II – referred to the election during his blessing, saying in Polish: “I entrust all the wishes and choices of the Polish people to the Mother of God.”
Church leaders in this largely Catholic nation have called on the faithful to vote, and some endorsed Law and Justice, which is against gay rights and against liberalising the current restrictive abortion law.
Prime Minister Marek Belka has fallen out with the governing party and last month agreed to run as a candidate for a new group, the Democratic Party, which faces a struggle to enter parliament.
Between them, Civic Platform and Law and Justice are expected to win a comfortable centre-right majority in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, or Sejm, and in the 100-seat Senate.
If the outcome is very close, the choice of prime minister could be complicated by the fact that Poland also will hold presidential elections on October 9, with a likely runoff vote two weeks later.
Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, the identical twin brother of Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is one of two leading candidates in that race. The other is Civic Platform’s Donald Tusk.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said that, if his brother wins, he would renounce the premiership in order to spare Poland the confusion of two leaders who look alike.
