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No decisive win for Tusk at elections
POLAND’S local and regional elections over the weekend failed to give Prime Minister Donald Tusk the sweeping victory he had hoped for in his efforts to reverse eight years of rule by a populist party that was accused by the European Union of eroding democratic norms.
Exit polls released after voting closed on Sunday night show that Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition did well in big cities, where it is popular with social liberals.
But the opposition Law and Justice party won more votes in elections for the country’s 16 regional assemblies, maintaining its dominance in conservative rural areas in eastern Poland.
The elections were a test for Tusk four months after he returned to power as prime minister, a job he held previously from 2007- 14.
He returned to office last year vowing to restore judicial independence and democratic guardrails after changes to the judiciary led the EU to cut billions of euros in funding to Poland.
Funding is being restored but
Tusk still faces a difficult path: new laws must be passed to reverse many of the judicial changes, and his vow to liberalise the country’s strict abortion law is being hampered by conservatives within his governing coalition.
The results from Sunday’s vote show that Poland remains deeply divided and that Tusk continues to face a formidable opponent in the conservative Law and Justice party and its 74- year- old leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Some had dismissed the party after they lost power at the national level last year but according to an exit poll by Ipsos, Law and Justice won 33.7% of Sunday’s vote, with Tusk’s Civic Coalition at 31.9%.