Poland’s local elections: exit poll shows PiS winning most votes but Tusk’s KO top in most provinces

Apr 8, 2024 | Politics

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has offered a frank assessment of local elections that took place around Poland yesterday, which offered mixed results for his ruling coalition. The opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, meanwhile, has celebrated exit polls showing it winning the most votes nationally.

According to the Ipsos exit poll for broadcaster TVN, the national-conservative PiS took 33.7% of the vote in elections to Poland’s 16 provincial parliaments, ahead of Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO) on 31.9%.

The centre-right Third Way was third with 13.5%; the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), which was standing in alliance with some nonpartisan local government groups, followed on 7.5%; and The Left (Lewica) has 6.8%.

The exit poll also indicates, however, that KO will be the largest group in ten of Poland’s 16 provinces while PiS is the largest in the remaining six. Ultimate control of each provincial parliament will, however, depend on forming coalitions with other groups to create majorities.

If confirmed in the official results, the exit poll figure would represent only a small loss for PiS compared to the last local elections in 2018, when it took 34.1%. Back then, Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) party – standing individually rather than as KO – received 27%.

Third Way, Confederation and The Left did not then exist in their current form. However, those groups, as well as PiS and KO, did all stand in the October 2023 parliamentary elections.

Yesterday’s exit poll indicates all five receiving similar vote shares to October, when PiS got 35.4%, KO 30.7%, Third Way 14.4%, The Left 8.6% and Confederation 7.2%.

Though PiS came top in those elections, it lost the parliamentary majority it had enjoyed since 2015 and was replaced in government by a coalition of KO, Third Way and The Left.

However, whereas October saw record voter turnout of over 74%, only 51.5% of eligible voters went to the polls yesterday, according to the exit poll.

Yesterday’s exit poll also covered the mayoral races in Poland’s major cities. It indicated that Warsaw’s incumbent mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, recorded a dominant victory, with almost 60% of the vote, ahead of PiS rival Tobiasz Bocheński in second place on 18.5%.

If the final result confirms that Trzaskowski received over 50% of the vote, that means he will win a second term without needing a run-off election against the second-place candidate in two weeks time.

Tusk called Trzaskowski “the hero of today’s elections”, saying he had “confirmed that he is the leader of democratic, local-authority Poland”. A strong result for Trzaskowski would strengthen calls for him to stand in next year’s presidential elections, after his close-run second-place finish in 2020.

Poland’s second-largest city, Kraków, does, however, look set for a run-off vote. According to the exit poll, Aleksander Miszalski of KO won 39.4% ahead of independent candidate Łukasz Gibała on 28.4%.

If official results confirm that neither took over 50%, then they will meet head-to-head in a second round on 21 April. Whoever wins will replace outgoing mayor Jacek Majchrowski, who has ruled Kraków since 2002.

In Wrocław, incumbent mayor Jacek Sutryk (an independent supported by KO) is also set for a run-off vote, having won 38.9% according to the exit poll, ahead of Izabela Bodnar (Trzecia Droga) on 31.4%.

The mayor of Gdańsk, Aleksandra Dulkiewicz of KO, however, has already won a second term, with 62.3% of the first-round vote, according to the exit poll. Her PiS rival, Tomasz Rakowski, trailed on 12.2%.

In Katowice, incumbent mayor Marcin Krupa, an independent supported by KO, also took an estimated 66.5%, ahead of PiS’s Leszek Piechota on 9.7%.

In a comment on social media this morning, Tusk said that he was pleased his group had won “record victories in cities” and had moved progressively closer to PiS in elections since 2018.

But he added that he was concerned about the “demobilisation” of voters since October, especially young people, and about his group’s “failure in the east and the countryside”, where PiS remains dominant.

PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, meanwhile, last night celebrated the exit poll result, noting that it shows his party has won the most votes nationally for the ninth election – presidential, parliamentary, local and European – in a row stretching back to 2014.

“As Mark Twain once said: reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” said Kaczyński, referring to pre-election predictions from some experts that his party would suffer a major setback.

Poles will go to the polls again in June for European elections while next year will see a vote to choose a new president after the second and final term of PiS-backed incumbent Andrzej Duda expires.


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Main image credit: Maciek Jazwiecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

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