Poland's triumphant Solidarity alliance stood at the threshold of power as exit polls after yesterday's elections gave it a clear lead over the ruling former communists.
A poll by the public OBOP institute after voting stations closed showed the Solidarity Election Action (AWS) capturing 33 per cent of the vote to 26.5 per cent for the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). The centrist liberal party favoured by financial markets, the Freedom Union (UW), was a strong third with 15 per cent, giving it a good chance of being kingmaker in future coalition talks.
The Solidarity leader, Mr Marian Krzaklewski, told cheering supporters: "If this victory is confirmed by official results we will begin to repair the blunders of which there have been so many."
If confirmed, the outcome would give his alliance of some 40 small parties a chance to replace their arch-foes, the former communists turned social democrats, at the helm of East Europe's most dynamic economy. Many of the parties would return to parliament after being routed in 1993 elections when they failed to pass the minimum 5 per cent threshold.
A Solidarity win could also force President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a reformed communist, into difficult cohabitation with the right-wing that has never forgiven him or his colleagues in the SLD, for their past.
This would be sweet revenge for ex-president and Solidarity leader, Mr Lech Walesa, who oversaw Poland's first years of democratic and market reforms and was narrowly defeated by Mr Kwasniewski in the presidential election of 1995.
He has since worked behind the scenes to bring various Solidarity offshoots, especially the AWS and the Freedom Union, together in a coalition.
The only other parties looking set to pass the 5 per cent threshold were the co-ruling Peasant party, which saw its 1993 result halved at 7 per cent, and the populist Movement for Reconstruction of Poland (ROP) with 5.6 per cent.