“It is of key importance from Hungary’s perspective, and the best possible news, that the Law and Justice Party (PiS) has won the elections in Poland, and that it seems the party will be able to continue to govern the country”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI in evaluation of the results of Sunday’s Polish elections.

“During the European debates of recent years, is has been proven that the two countries can always count on each other”, the Minister highlighted. “And in fact, in the most difficult situations, Poland and Hungary have only been able to count on each other”, he added. “For this reason, it was of key importance from Hungary’s perspective that the Law and Justice Party should win the elections”, Mr. Szijjártó emphasised. “There are extremely serious proceedings underway against both Hungary and Poland in the European Union, and it seems that during the course of these proceedings we will continue to have an ally on whom we can depend”, the Minister said. “Just as Poland has always been able to count on Hungary to date, we can also count on the support of our Polish friends”, Mr. Szijjártó emphasised.

Based on the first partial results on Monday morning, which mainly summarise the results in smaller settlements, the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) has won the elections with 49.3 percent of the votes. The main opposition party, the Civic Coalition (KO) came in second with 22.3 percent, with the left-wing alliance made up of the post-communist Left-Wing Democratic Alliance (SLD) and smaller left-wing liberal groups including the Spring (Wiosna) left-wing liberal party coming third with 10.9 percent of the votes. 9.8 percent of the electorate voted for the coalition of the Polish People’s Party (PSL) and the anti-establishment Kukiz’15 Movement. The alliance of national radical parties, Confederation (Konfederacja), also exceeded the 5 percent limit required to get into Parliament with 6.6 of the recorded votes.

(MTI)