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.

Law and Justice, which advocates a stronger role for the government in the economy and retaining social welfare programmes, appeared to win the role which would position its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, to become prime minister.

But Mr Kaczynski has said he would not stand for the office if his identical twin brother, Warsaw Mayor Lech Kacyznski, wins the presidency in elections next month. Civic Platform long enjoyed the lead in opinion polls as it pledged to reduce state bureaucracy and push for a 15% flat-rate income tax.

Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk, also a leading candidate for president, conceded that Law and Justice had bested his party.

“I want to say to my friends at Law and Justice - we congratulate you. You won the election,” Mr Tusk told supporters at party headquarters in Warsaw.

Yesterday’s is the fifth fully free parliamentary election since the transition from communism to multiparty democracy in 1989.

No government since then has won re-election, and power has swung back and forth between reformed communists and parties rooted in the anti-communist Solidarity movement.