The democratic camp and a large segment of Poland society have been celebrating the results of Poland's parliamentary elections announced on Sunday, October 15. Just a few weeks ago, few believed this victory could be possible. The polls were low as recently as the spring, and the mood among the leaders of the three opposition parties was counter-productive. Their ego battles amounted to an interminable drama that ended in the failure to create a joint opposition list.
Nevertheless, the efforts of an effective campaign paid off and the official results that became known on Tuesday confirmed a comfortable majority of 248 seats out of 460 for the three democratic parties in the Diet and 66 out of 100 in the Senate. The leader of the Civic Platform (PO), Donald Tusk, is expected to become prime minister, a position he already held between 2007 and 2014. He will face resolute opposition from the ultraconservative nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), with 194 elected members, as well as a difficult relationship with President Andrzej Duda (PiS), at least until the 2025 presidential election.
Given the disproportionate means deployed by the PiS campaign, the opposition's victory can be described as crushing. Above all, a record voter turnout of 73.9% has lent unquestionable legitimacy to the winners, rendering impossible the long-feared scenario of PiS challenging the results.
The country seems to have recovered the spirit of Solidarnosc ("Solidarity"), the name of the trade union that brought down the communist system in the 1980s. Many argue that this year's parliamentary elections were even more important than those of 1989 because they halted Poland's drift toward populist authoritarianism, which might have proved deep rooted and long lasting. The opposition, whose government will be formed in December, now has four priorities: to hold PiS to account for its violations of the rule of law and alleged corruption, to get Poland back on the "right track" within the European Union, to rebuild impaired institutions and public policies and to embark on a policy of national reconciliation to put an end to the so-called "Polish-Polish war."
Analysis of the results has revealed that the scale of the victory was made possible by the support of women and the country's younger voters. Turnout among these two groups was 20 points higher than in 2019, compared with 12.2 points higher for the population as a whole. The 18-29 age group voted 62.9% for the three democratic parties and only 14.4% for PiS (as well as 17.8% for the far-right libertarian Konfederacja). Among students, PiS obtained 11% of the vote and the far right 13.4%. Among women, 56.7% voted for the democratic camp and 35.9% for PiS (3.7% for the far right).
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