Poles will head to the ballot box on October 15 to elect 460 new MPs and 100 senators for a four-year term.
Ruling conservatives to win third term: IBRiS/Radio Zet
The ruling conservatives, who won a convincing victory over the opposition in 2019 and are seeking a third term in power, topped the latest IBRiS/Radio Zet survey published on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Asked who will govern Poland after the elections, 21.1 percent of respondents said the ruling Law and Justice party and its coalition partners, or the United Right, would remain in power.
A further 18.7 percent of those surveyed said a coalition of the United Right and the far-right Confederation grouping was the most likely outcome, the forsal.pl website reported.
Meanwhile, 24.3 percent of respondents said the new government would be formed by the three main opposition groupings, the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), the New Left, and the Third Way alliance, according to PAP.
A further 13.2 percent of those asked said there would be a minority government, resulting in an early election, while 21.8 percent said they could not predict the outcome of the ballot, forsal.pl reported.
The IBRiS/Radio Zet poll was conducted on October 6 and 7 through computer-aided telephone interviews on a nationwide sample of 1,000 respondents, the PAP news agency reported.
Opposition to form Poland’s new government: Pollster/Super Express
Meanwhile, opposition parties came out on top in another opinion poll, conducted by the Pollster research institute for the Super Express newspaper, and also published on Monday, PAP reported.
Asked who they would vote for if elections were held now, 50 percent of respondents mentioned one of the three main opposition groupings, according to the rmf24.pl website.
This would translate into a stable majority for the opposition in the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, according to experts.
The United Right garnered the support of 34.34 percent of those asked, 2.42 percentage points fewer than in the previous Pollster/Super Express survey, the PAP news agency reported.
Meanwhile, 30 percent of respondents declared they would vote for the Civic Coalition (a drop by 0.44 percentage points); 11.76 percent said they supported the Third Alliance (an increase of 1.95 percentage points); 10.51 percent vowed to vote for the Confederation (a rise of 1.86 percentage points); and 8.23 percent declared support for the New Left (a fall by 1.49 percentage points), according to rmf24.pl.
This would mean 183 seats in the lower house for the United Right, 157 for the Civic Coalition, 49 for the Third Way, 42 for the Confederation, and 28 for the New Left, according Jarosław Flis, a professor of sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, southern Poland.
An alliance of the Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the New Left would thus have 234 seats and a clear majority in the lower house, Flis said, adding that the ruling party was “in trouble,” the PAP news agency reported.
Voter turnout at 68%?
Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they were planning to vote in the parliamentary election on October 15, while 39 percent declared they would also take part in a nationwide referendum on the same day on issues including illegal migration, rmf24.pl reported.
The Pollster/Super Express poll was carried out on October 6-7 through computer-assisted web interviews on a sample of 1,022 adult Poles, with a maximum estimation error of 3 percent, the PAP news agency reported.
Poles to vote in referendum
In August, Poland's lawmakers approved a plan to combine parliamentary elections with a nationwide referendum asking Poles whether their country should accept migrants from the Middle East and Africa, whether state companies can be sold to foreign buyers, whether the retirement age should be increased, and whether a wall on Poland's border with Belarus should be dismantled.
The ruling conservatives have encouraged people to cast their ballots in the referendum, while the opposition has asked voters to boycott it, saying the referendum questions are worded in a biased way and contain misleading information designed to boost support for the government.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, forsal.pl, rmf24.pl