Poles give election verdict on Kaczynski twins

People vote during the parlimentary elections at a polling station in Glinianka
©AFP - Wojtek Radwanski

WARSAW (AFP) - Poles voted Sunday in a parliamentary election which could see the liberal opposition win power from the outspokenly conservative Kaczynski twins.

Opposition parties have seized on the strained ties with neighbouring Germany and the rest of Europe that have marked the rule of President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

In the face of the stiff challenge from the liberal Civic Platform (PO), the prime minister said he regretted political errors he has made in his two years in power a final speech before campaigning ended.

"I know we made mistakes. I apologise for them," Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in a last-minute attempt to reach out to critics as canvassing closed on Friday night.

The Kaczynski brothers' Law and Justice (PiS) party narrowly defeated PO at the last election in 2005.

Some polls have said PO could obtain more than 230 seats, which would make it the first party since the fall of communism in 1989 to secure a parliamentary majority.

The snap election was called two years early because of the collapse of the PiS' three-party coalition in August. Neither of its erstwhile partners is expected to make it into parliament this time.

Poles voted for 460 members of the lower house, the Sejm, who are chosen using proportional representation, and 100 members of the Senate, who are elected on a winner-takes-all basis.

Turnout was sluggish early Sunday as voters in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country headed to the polls after Sunday Mass.

A man casts his ballot at a polling station in Warsaw
©AFP - Joe Klamar

The result will be closely watched abroad as the emerging Eastern European powerhouse of some 38 million people has grown more demanding in defending its interests.

The Kaczynski twins have clashed frequently with fellow European Union and NATO leaders as well as neighbouring Russia, most recently over their strong support for US plans to base part of an anti-missile system in Poland.

Tusk's party has promised to heal the rifts and stop political infighting at home.

It has also pledged to spur on the country's already booming economic growth to help curb an exodus of more than one million Poles who have moved to Britain and Ireland since 2004 looking for work.

The Kaczynski camp argues that keeping the PiS in power is the only way finally to break the legacy of Poland's communist regime, and ensure the country's interests will be defended on the international stage.

Reviving their successful anti-graft message of 2005, the Kaczynskis have trumpeted their efforts to rid Poland of corruption that flourished in the 1990s. Critics have spoken of "witch hunts" against political rivals.

The Kaczynskis have also sought to make political capital of their deeply-held Catholicism, a faith followed by more than 90 percent of Poles.

But they do not have the Church hierarchy fully onside.

"What we've been through for the past two years has been an huge waste of time," Tadeusz Goclowski, archbishop of Gdansk, said Sunday, as he urged Poles to vote.

Tusk's ratings spiked in after he ran rings around Jaroslaw Kaczynski during a televised campaign debate.

Polish voters look at lists of candidates
©AFP - Wojtek Radwanski

"This is a kind of referendum on whether we want the Kaczynskis or we don't want the Kaczynskis," said analyst Pawel Ciacek of the SMJ/KRC polling institute.

Lech Kaczynski will remain in office whatever Sunday's result, because his presidential term runs until the end of 2010.

Voting was to end at 8:00 pm (1800 GMT). Preliminary official results are expected early Monday.