Polish opposition claims win
Poland's opposition party claims victory in parliamentary elections
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Monday, 22, Oct 2007 11:51
Poland's opposition Civic Platform (PO) party has claimed victory in a snap election in a severe blow to governing twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski.
With 90 per cent of votes counted PO is projected to win 208 seats, leaving the identical twins' conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) languishing with 164.
Prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has already accepted defeat in the election, but his brother Lech still has three years of his presidency left to run.
PO leader Donald Tusk is expected to enter into a coalition with the Polish Peasants' party, forecast to claim 35 seats, to gain a workable parliamentary majority.
Mr Tusk's campaign had been based on a softer approach to foreign policy and the EU, while also promising a raft of economic reforms.
"I thank everyone who, in an impartial way, has helped restore hope among Poles," the 50-year-old said as results for the election, which had a post-Communist era high turnout of 54 per cent, arrived.
A critic of the war in Iraq, Mr Tusk has also pledged to entice the hundreds of thousands of Polish workers who have left to the UK and Ireland since the country acceded to the EU in 2004 to return home.
The Kaczynski twins have polarised opinion in Poland after presiding over an overheating of the economy while trumpeting their traditional Catholic values.
At the same time though they have strained relations with Germany and the wider EU by referring to second world war atrocities during reform treaty negotiations.
Lech Kaczynski will nominate a replacement for his brother as prime minister when the new parliament meets at the beginning of November. Final confirmation of the election results is expected tomorrow.