(Warsaw) The ruling pro-European camp managed to maintain its political weight in local elections on Sunday, the first national test since October’s legislative elections, despite the proportional victory of populist nationalists, according to an exit poll ballot boxes.
According to the IPSOS institute poll, the Law and Justice party (PiS) won 33.7% of the votes at the level of regional assemblies, compared to 31.9% for the Civic Coalition (KO, center) of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, 13.5% for the Third Way (Christian Democrat) and 6.8% for the Left, these last three groups together forming the pro-European camp in power.
Konfederacja’s far right, PiS’s only potential ally, enjoyed support from 7.5% of voters.
“October 15 [la victoire des forces pro-UE aux élections législatives, NDLR] was done again in April,” said Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Aside from the regional assemblies, voters also elected their mayors and local councilors.
The Civic Coalition won hands down, in the first round, the mayoral election in its two largest strongholds, in Warsaw and Gdansk (north).
The mayor of Warsaw who thus renewed his mandate, Rafal Trzaskowski, immediately welcomed that “a new step has been taken to ensure that the PiS populists will never return to power”.
However, the leader of PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski once again proclaimed the victory of his movement, quoting the phrase attributed to the writer Marc Twain: “The announcement of my death is entirely premature”.
At the national level, PiS can still boast its first place among political parties – it is still the largest party in Parliament.
The full official results of the elections should be published on Wednesday, according to the Electoral Commission, but the political weight at the level of specific regions, cities and villages should become clearer by then, as local partial counts progress.
The election campaign focused mainly on local issues, such as transport, housing and strengthening local power after years of centralization advocated by PiS.
It was punctuated by demonstrations by farmers protesting against European Union environmental measures and food imports mainly from Ukraine, by financial scandals linked to the previous government and by the conflict between the ruling parties on the liberalization of abortion.
The participation rate was 51%, well below the record of 74.4% during the October legislative elections which were victorious for the pro-European forces.