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WARSAW – The populist message of the ruling party in Poland – steeped in religion, attached to traditional values and animated by historical grievances – has not gained ground in Warsaw in Sunday's elections, a sign that 39 may not have expanded his support to more moderate voters.
According to exit polls, the party also apparently did not get support in most other big cities in Poland. But he has shown strength in poor and rural communities where his message has the deepest resonance, suggest polls at the exit.
Elections, held in local and provincial offices, were the first to take place across the country since the law and justice party came to power in the 2015 parliamentary elections.
It could take up to two days for all votes to be counted and the official results published. While local parties and media rely heavily on the exit polls conducted by IPSOS, they provide only a rough guide.
Polls suggest that Poland is deeply divided.
The ruling party "has failed to convince liberal and metropolitan voters that law and justice is a more moderate party," said Rafal Chwedoruk, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw.
The competitions involved around 2,500 mayors and other local officials, as well as 47,000 aldermen.
"We won for the fourth time and the result is auspicious for the future," said Kaczynski.
Although he was satisfied with Sunday's results, he complained that the government was bombarded with "false information" and had to face competition in an often hostile environment.
"We will have to work very hard for the next year and that's my message for you," he told the party's followers. "I would like the next elections to take place in a better atmosphere."
He reminded party loyalists that this election was only the first in a series that would determine the country's future.
Next spring, elections will be held for members of the European Parliament, followed in the autumn by elections for the Polish Parliament and the presidential election in 2020.
Before Sunday's election, 15 of Poland's 16 provincial governments were controlled by a coalition of the Civic Platform – the largest party of the Civic Coalition – and the Conservative Party of Peasants, which finished in third place with approximately one sixth of the votes.
Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of Civic Platform, said he had laid the foundation for a reversal of the rule of law and justice next year.
"The march will be long and today we have only taken the first step towards victory," he said.
Opposition politicians seemed to have exercised control over the country's major cities. In the capital, the Law and Justice candidate acknowledged his defeat after exit polls suggested that he had lost more than 20 percentage points.
Supporters of the government see its leaders as defenders of the sovereignty of the nation and the protection of traditional Christian values in this deeply Catholic country.
Opponents see a party with increasingly authoritarian tendencies, intent on undermining democracy in an attempt to retain power and advance its agenda.
Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity trade union movement, who helped the country break free from the communist regime, was photographed while voting wearing a t-shirt with the word "Konstytucja" or Constitution.
The word has become a rallying cry for those who fear that the government is undermining legality by taking increasing control over the justice system.
Last week, the highest court in Europe ordered the government to reinstate more than two dozen judges who had been dismissed as part of a purge orchestrated by the party.
While the government has waged a series of battles with the European Union on many issues and has become the first member country threatened with suspended voting rights, the vast majority of the population remains supportive of its membership in the bloc .
This is especially true in the country's largest cities.
The race that attracted the most attention – and the one that seemed to most clearly define the dividing lines that deepen between the ruling party and the opposition – was the contest of the mayor of Warsaw.
Patryk Jaki, the current Deputy Minister of Justice and mayoral candidate of Warsaw for the affairs of law and justice, has placed the issue of migration at the center of his campaign and raised against the ruling elite, while posing next to a representative of the EU. flag in campaign ads.
While devoting much of his campaign to targeting voters in the poorest neighborhoods of the city and promising to expand the government's already generous social assistance, it was not enough to overcome deep antipathy. towards his party in the capital.
The Civic Platform candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski, former Secretary of State for European Affairs and speaking six languages, has positioned himself as a defender of Western democratic values and civility.
"I would like to be able to tell you that we could have done more, but that would not be true," Jaki said, conceding his defeat on Sunday night. "Sometimes it's just impossible to pierce the glass ceiling. As long as you keep fighting, you are a winner. "
In an interview with a private news channel, TVN24, Trzaskowski said his victory met the hopes and desires of the people of Warsaw, who are more interested in the future than in the past.
He said he hoped it was only the first step to steer the nation on another path.
