The right failed to gain a majority in the Polish Sejm

Poland’s ruling national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party won the most seats in parliamentary elections on October 15, but may fail to form a government. According to the election results, after processing all the ballots, PiS receives 35.38% of the votes. Her main opponent, the center-right Civic Coalition, received 30.7% of the vote, thus finishing in second place. Next came the “Third Way”, a center-right voting bloc with a result of 14.4% of the vote. Fourth place was taken by the “Left”, receiving 8.61% of the votes. The far-right Confederation party received even less – only 7.16% of the vote, the newspaper reports.

Although PiS won the elections, the “Civil Coalition” is vying for a majority in the Sejm, which can take the “Third Way” as a partner. Then the opposition will have 222 seats – 157 for the Coalition and 65 for the Third Way. PiS gains 194 seats in the Sejm, but with this result, even in a coalition with the ideologically completely alien leftists and the Confederation, the national conservatives do not receive the required 231 seats to form a majority. However, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Polish President Andrzej Duda have already stated that the winning party, that is, PiS, will be entrusted with forming a government. “The custom in Poland until now was that the winning party formed the government. I don’t think anything should change now. This is my position,” Duda emphasized.

It is not yet guaranteed that the “Civil Coalition” and the “Third Way” will agree on the creation of a government, says Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, a researcher at IMEMO RAS. Tusk cannot count on the help of the “Left”: the Polish left sees in the “Civic Platform”, the leading party of the “Civic Coalition”, corrupt European bureaucrats who are striving for power. That is why it is not surprising that President Duda, himself a former member of the European Parliament from PiS, speaks of a desire to entrust the creation of a government to national conservatives.

In general, the situation in Poland seems hopeless and, under bad circumstances, could end in paralysis of the government and, as a consequence, new elections more beneficial for the opposition than for PiS. The expert says that only a coalition between PiS and the Civic Coalition can solve this difficult equation. Despite the fantastic nature of such a scenario, there was a similar precedent in the history of Poland, which means that this option should not be discounted, summarizes Ofitserov-Belsky.