Poles likely to oust Belka

EXIT polls last night indicated Polish voters had ousted the scandal-prone left-wing government of Prime Minister Marek Belka and given a broad majority to two centre- right parties that promise tax cuts and clean government.

An exit poll for Polish government television showed the social conservative Law and Justice Party with 27.8% and the free-market Civic Platform with 24.1%; the governing Democratic Left Alliance lagged with 11.2%.

Law and Justice and Civic Platform have said that they will form a government together, and government television projections showed them together with 303 seats in the 460-seat lower house, easily a majority but four short of the two-thirds they would need to alter the constitution.