MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Former Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) won national parliamentary elections with 37.58 percent of the votes, the National Election Commission chairman said.
"The migration crisis played a significant role in the elections. Polish citizens didn't like the fact that the European Union and later Civil Platform decided to bring refugees to Poland. As we know ‘Law and Justice’ party has been against bringing refugees to Poland and the voters appreciated this position," Jacek Nowak, executive director of the Institute for Intercultural Communication and Interdisciplinary Studies SILK ROAD, told Sputnik.
According to Przemyslaw Ozierski, an independent Polish political expert, there is no doubt that the ongoing migration crisis affected the vote.
"The refugee crisis promoted certain level of public panic that was utilized by right-wing forces and played against the ruling Civic Platform. However, we could say that it was just another nail in the coffin of the current political setup," Ozierski said.
According to Ozierski, the Civic Platform election loss could also be explained by several other factors, such as the rise of the retirement age and private pension fund asset seizures.
Europe has been struggling to manage a major influx of migrants fleeing war-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Over 710,000 migrants have arrived in the European Union within the first nine months of 2015, according to the EU border agency Frontex.
In September, EU interior ministers approved a plan to redistribute some 160,000 refugees throughout the bloc under a quota system.
An opinion poll, conducted by the UK-based Populus research consultancy exclusively for Sputnik and published earlier Tuesday, found that 51 percent of Polish respondents opposed the former government’s decision to accept refugees.
