POLAND: Poles welcome Parliamentary election result which saw the centre-right Civic Platform party defeat the conservative Law and Justice party

Poles wake up to a new beginning after election victory for the Civic Platform party and look forward to faster market reforms and a less combative foreign policy. Poles are waking up to what many hope will be a new beginning after Sunday's parliamentary elections. The centre-right Civic Platform party defeated the conservative Law and Justice party of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski after a record number of Poles turned up at the ballot box to reject social conservatism and isolationism. Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk is expected to be prime minister of the new government, with the centrist Peasant's Party his expected coalition partner. On the streets of Warsaw on Monday (October 22) many people celebrated the news. Some hoped things would finally get better for the Polish people. According to preliminary results from the electoral commission, the Platform won 41.6 percent of the vote, giving them 208 seats in the lower house -- short of an outright majority of 231 seats. Final results were expected on Tuesday. With 91 percent of the vote counted, the Peasants' Party had won 8.8 percent, or 35 seats, giving the likely government 243 seats in the 460-seat lower house, the Sejm. Kaczynski, whose party got over 30 percent of the vote, conceded defeat. His twin brother Lech, the president, does not face an election until 2010 but opposition parties together looked set to get enough seats in parliament to trump his veto power. It is up to the president to nominate the next prime minister once the new parliament meets for the first time on November 5. The Platform's victory will be greeted with relief in EU capitals where the Kaczynskis have earned a reputation of troublemakers with their nationalist agenda since coming to power in 2005.

ITN Source | October 22, 2007

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