Law and Justice Party wins Polish elections, Orban lauds ‘Polish friends’

Poland's ruling nationalist Law and Justice [PiS] Party has won Sunday's parliamentary elections with 45.8% of the vote, according to official results from 72% of constituencies.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (photo credit: REUTERS/EVA PLEVIER)
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki
(photo credit: REUTERS/EVA PLEVIER)
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party [PiS] won the country’s Sunday elections garnering 45.2% of the vote, according to official results from 72% of constituencies published by the electoral committee on Monday, Reuters reported.  
 
Based on the current results, it is possible that PiS will be able to form its own majority in parliament and not need coalition parties to rule the country.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki took to social media on Sunday to say that, "Poles decided today they want to continue [with] a good change" and thanked the voters for their trust. "We will not let you down!"
 
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated Poland’s ruling Law and Justice [PiS] Party, the Polish news site Onet reported. 
 
Orban spoke on Hungarian television as his own country also held elections on Sunday, saying that from Hungary’s point of view, the Polish elections are “very important.” 
 
Poland's biggest opposition grouping Civic Coalition (KO) came in second with 26.1% support, followed by the leftist alliance, The Left, with 12.1%. The radical far-Right Confederation got 6.7% based on the partial, official results.
 
If these figures hold, the Confederacy will have passed the electoral threshold for the first time.  
 
The success of the Confederacy, which in the past slammed politicians for “bowing down to Jews,” comes with it having won roughly one fifth of the votes among those below 30, OKO press reported. 
 
Sociologist Gavin Rae took to social media to point out that, unlike the Confederacy, the Civic Coalition enjoys support across the age spectrum. 
 
He also lauded the strategic success of pulling the three Left-leaning parties together into one block and warned that the Coalition gets over half of its voters from people who have attended higher education institutions.
 
“The left has been unable to expand outwards to new social groups,” he wrote, pointing out that relatively few people voted for it in the eastern part of the country or in small towns.