Leader of Civic Platform (PO) Donald Tusk speaking on election night in Warsaw, Poland, 15 October 2023. EPA-EFE/Piotr Nowak

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Poland’s ruling nationalists lose majority in election, final results confirm

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Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party won most votes in Sunday’s national election but fell short of a majority, final official results showed on Tuesday, confirming that the liberal, pro-EU opposition is on track to form the next government.

The official results from 100 per cent of voting districts gave PiS, a nationalist, socially conservative party, 35.38 per cent of the vote, while the liberal Civic Coalition (KO) was in second place with 30.70 per cent.

The centre-right Third Way took third place with 14.40 per cent and the New Left had 8.61 per cent of the vote. The far-right Confederation had 7.16 per cent of the vote, the results showed.

The Civic Coalition, New Left and Third Way have said they are ready to form a coalition government and that they will start talks once the official results are published.

President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, said before the vote that he would give the first shot at forming a new government to the winning party, but PiS will struggle to find allies, with the Confederation probably getting too few seats to help.

KO and its allies are also set to win a clear majority in the 100-seat upper chamber of parliament, the Senate, elected on a first-past-the-post system, the official results showed.

The three opposition parties had presented one list of candidates for the upper house.