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Poland's eurosceptic conservatives win national vote: partial results

27 October 2015 03:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Poland's conservative opposition Law and Justice party (PiS) won Sunday's parliamentary election, preliminary official results showed on Monday, marking a shift towards social conservatism and left-leaning economics in the ex-communist state, APA reports quoting Reuters.

PiS secured 37.6 percent of the vote, the country's election body said, with the ruling Civic Platform (PO) coming in second at 24.1 percent.

It was not immediately clear whether the result, which will be made final on Tuesday, would allow PiS - led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of Poland's late president Lech - to rule alone.

Exit polls on Sunday showed the eurosceptic party commanding a small majority of seats in Poland's 460-seat legislature.

If that result is confirmed, Jaroslaw Kaczynski's PiS has scored the biggest victory for a single party in terms of seats since Poland shed communism in 1989, returning to power in ex-communist central Europe's biggest nation after eight years.

Three small parties also made it into parliament, the preliminary results showed.

That might make for some political horse-trading over the next few weeks but will not weaken the decisive swing towards Law and Justice's brand of social conservatism mixed with left-leaning economics.

The European Commission and Germany - which both had strained ties with the last PiS-led government that fell apart in 2007 - said they hoped for good relations with the new government. It will not be led by the combative Kaczynski but by Beata Szydlo, his party loyalist with no foreign policy credentials.

PiS favors a sharp rise in public spending and a larger state role in the economy. It also wants the central bank to launch a cheap lending program worth 350 billion zlotys over six years to support growth - an idea some see as undermining the bank's independence.

PiS aired plans to reap new revenues from next year with a tax on banks' assets and there were also signs it was confident of sufficient informal support in parliament from other parties to plan changes to Poland's constitution.

"Many party leaders have talked of wanting deeper change in Poland so, if we want to deliver that, changes to the constitution are vital," the party's spokesman on economic affairs, Zbigniew Kuzmiuk, said on Monday.

Rating agency Standard and Poor's said the outcome of the vote had no immediate impact on Poland's A- rating with a positive outlook, but added that policy measures planned by Law and Justice could dampen investor confidence.

"We could revise the outlook to stable if we saw reversals regarding fiscal consolidation, macroeconomic management, or monetary policy," said S&P lead analyst on Poland, Felix Winnekens.

Poland's main stock market index rose 0.2 percent on Monday, but shares in some banks fell. The zloty currency weakened slightly as investors had already priced in a PiS victory in recent weeks. Ten-year bond yields rose about seven basis points on the day.