Polish Anti Europe and Anti Refugees Party Wins Poland’s Parliamentary Vote

Poland took a turn to the right in its parliamentary election Sunday, tossing out the centrist party for a socially conservative and party that ants to keep migrants out and spend more on Poland’s own poor.

An exit poll showed the conservative Law and Justice party winning 39 percent of the vote, enough to govern alone without forming a coalition.

The ruling pro-European Civic Platform party received 23 percent of the vote, according to the exit poll, and Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz of Civic Platform conceded shortly afterward.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Law and Justice, declared victory and promised his party would govern fairly.

“We will exert law but there will be no taking of revenge. There will be no squaring of personal accounts,” he said. “There will be no kicking of those who have fallen out of their own fault and very rightly so.”

Kaczynski credited his late brother, former Polish President Lech Kaczynski, with the party’s strong showing. His brother was killed in the 2010 air crash in Russia that claimed the lives of the president and many of Poland’s top leaders.

If the exit poll results are confirmed, the Law and Justice will take 242 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament and 58-year-old lawmaker Beata Szydlo will become Poland’s next prime minister.

A victory by Law and Justice gives the party a chance to implement a brand of politics that is strongly pro-NATO but also somewhat Euroskeptic. The party opposes adopting the euro currency and is strongly anti-migrant, positions that are expected to have a broader impact on the 28-nation European Union, of which Poland is a member.

According to the exit poll, for the first time in Poland’s post-communist history, no left-wing forces appear to have won enough votes to enter into parliament.

Two left-wing forces had been in the running: United Left, a coalition of several parties, and a new party, Together.

Civic Platform had led the country through a period of strong economic growth and political stability, even during the global financial crisis of 2008-09 and the 2010 plane crash that killed Poland’s president. But the presidential vote in May signaled problems for Civic Platform when Law and Justice candidate Andrzej Duda edged out their incumbent.

The Catholic Church was seen as backing Law and Justice, as were many Poles who have not benefited from the country’s strong economic growth, expected at 3.5 percent this year.