In Poland, the national-conservative governing party won yesterday in the parliamentary elections about 45 percent of the vote, making it again by far the largest party. Thanks to the Polish Elections Act and the distribution of seats, the PiS party once again achieves a majority in parliament.
The battle seemed to be over before the elections. In the last polls on Sunday morning, the party also emerged as the big winner. In Poland, the 460 Sejm seats are allocated on a proportional basis. As a result, the larger parties have an advantage.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chairman of the Polish national-conservative government party PiS, has since claimed his election victory. If that result is confirmed, PiS has the prospect of 239 seats in the 460-seat parliament and can therefore only continue to govern.
According to the exit polls, the largest opposition party, the Centristian Coalition KO, would come out at 27.4 percent. The third place is the Left (SLD) with 11.9 percent, followed by the center-right Polish Coalition (PSL) with 9.6 percent.
Although those opposition parties together have more votes in percentage of votes than the right-conservative PiS party, cooperation or blocking by those parties is not obvious: they differ too much from a political course for that.
For the vote on Sunday, 61.1 percent of the voters came up. That means the largest turnout in Polish elections since 1989.
It is hardly surprising that the Kaczynski party wins the elections. PiS can count on a lot of support in rural areas in particular, thanks to a number of social programs & higher allowances. For example, every Polish family receives a monthly allowance of 130 euros per child.
In the campaign, PiS also focused strongly on the European Union, modernist hassle and on homosexual relationships, which, according to Kaczynski, pose a threat to traditional Polish family values.