Poland had an election

A second exit poll in Poland has predicted the governing right-wing populist Law and Justice party won the most votes in Sunday's election but will lose its majority in parliament.

If the official result, expected on Tuesday, confirms the second exit poll prediction - which has a 2% margin of error - it's up to President Andrezj Duda, a former Law and Justice MP, to appoint a new prime minister to form a government.
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Poland’s ruling populists appear to be heading for electoral defeat, in what would be one of the most consequential European political turnarounds of recent years, if exit polls showing a victory for an opposition coalition led by Donald Tusk prove correct.

The exit polls suggested that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party received the most votes, but that Tusk’s Civic Coalition together with two other opposition parties should have a route to a parliamentary majority.

Tusk, who was Polish prime minister between 2007 and 2014 and then became European Council president for five years, declared victory almost immediately after polls closed on Sunday, claiming there was no route for PiS to claim a third term in office.
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If the exit polls are confirmed, the result is likely to transform Poland’s domestic political scene and restart relations with Brussels, which had frayed over PiS’s attacks on the independent judiciary and other rule of law issues.

It comes after months of vicious campaigning, in which Tusk highlighted the damage done to Poland over the past eight years while PiS claimed he was a foreign stooge who would destroy the country. PiS apparently failed to convince enough voters to support them despite control over public media and the introduction of a referendum on the same day as the election with a series of leading questions on migration and other issues, aimed at motivating its base to vote.
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Donald Tusk recently returned to Brussels as a “proud Pole” and a “proud European.” It is not quite clear which ascription comes first. Equally unclear is the capacity in which Mr. Tusk voyaged, for he is not yet Poland’s prime minister. Yet what is clear is that should Mr. Tusk assume the role, Poland could well see “more Paris in Warsaw,” as Mr. Tusk told President Macron of France last year — and likely not the good parts.
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It is then little surprise that Europe has been cheered by the prospect of “Prime Minister Donald Tusk.” Of the election result, the former Belgian prime minister turned European Parliament member, Guy Verhofstadt, noted it “reinforced the EU” and was “a lesson” for the allies of Law and Justice at Brussels. Mr. Verhofstadt is among a group of German and French EU parliament members now leading the charge to amend the EU’s founding treaties.

The proposed changes, which are to be voted on during the EU’s upcoming plenary session in November, would, among other measures, eliminate member states’ veto rights in dozens of areas, including defense, taxation, and foreign policy. Warsaw or Paris, say, could then be outvoted on such matters by the EU.

Unanimity voting would be replaced with majority voting. The European Commission would be renamed the “European Executive” with its president nominated by the EU parliament and with the ability to select members along ideological lines. The parliament’s powers would be expanded, and all matters of climate and environment turned over to bureaucrats in Brussels. New “solidarity provisions” included in the EU’s treaties could yet make distribution of migrants legally mandatory.

It is unclear whether such revisions would, in their current form, win the support of European governments. ...

At minimum, the proposed reform initiative suggests EU leaders have not yet relinquished their visions of centralized control. If not now, they are likely to attempt sometime again — perhaps, so they hope, with Mr. Tusk as their linchpin.
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