Poland's electorate plump for continuity

The exit polls put Platforma Obywatelska (PO - Civic Platform) in first place with 39.6% of the vote (down a touch on 2007's result of 41.51%) clearly beating Prawo i Sprawidliwość (PiS - Law and Justice) into second (30.1% down from from 32.11% in 2007). So PO will stay on in power.

For the first time in 21 years of democracy in Poland, a governing party has come first in elections. This means an unprecedented vote for continuity.

The only question is - with whom? Unable to form a government on their own - will PO have enough seats with current junior coalition partner PSL (who got 8.2% of the vote in the exit poll) to continue in power with them? Or would PO actually prefer to turn to the party of social and economic liberal Janusz Palikot (who gained an amazing 10.2% in the exit poll) to form a majority?

Now this would be interesting. In theory, a PO-Palikot coalition would be a good one, though socially abrasive (Palikot enjoys rubbing up the Church the wrong way). But above all, Palikot in government would put more pressure on a rather inert PO to finally get round to reforming the state. Palikot no doubt won massive support from Poland's entrepreneurs, running micro-businesses in the face of the tyranny of red tape, soulless bureaucracy and poorly thought-through and drafted regulations. PSL have tended to act as a handbrake when it came to reforming KRUS (the social security system for farmers which ended up with self-employed people paying eight times more in social security than well-off farmers), and finding their mates cushy public sector jobs.

Palikot's party is a one-man band (imagine the third largest party in the UK, for example, being called 'The Movement to Support Nick Clegg') without any strength in depth. Palikot, a maverick who split off from PO because it was insufficiently radical for him, is seen by some as PO's attack dog, let off the leash before the elections, to return in coalition with PO as a powerful agent for pushing reform. Palikot also proved useful in knocking the post-communist SLD into fifth place (with a mere 7.7% in the exit poll - this was the first time it failed to win double-digit support - a dramatic collapse from its 13.2% in 2007).

We shall see how the coalition talks conclude. PO is currently talking about keeping the present coalition going. What ever happens, my main emotion right now is relief that PiS are nowhere near power; a return of Jarosław Kaczyński and his crew (Antoni Macierewicz, Anna Fotyga, Zbigniew Ziobro - no thanks!) would have been utterly disastrous for Poland.