The Polish opposition could win a tiny majority in the new parliament in the election due on October 15, a new poll showed on September 11.

The poll puts the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party still top of the race but the combined results of three opposition parties ranging from left to centre-right could give them the smallest possible majority of 231 seats, a poll by IBRiS for the newspaper Rzeczpospolita and radio RMF FM showed.

PiS polled at 33.2% in the IBRiS survey, ahead of the Civic Coalition (KO) at 26%. Crucially, two other opposition parties, the centre-right Third Way and the New Left, came in at 10.3% and 10.1%, respectively, giving the entire opposition bloc a possible edge over PiS, according to simulations.

The far-right Konfederacja, sometimes touted as PiS’ potential coalition partner, had the support of 9.4% of the surveyed representative sample of 1,100 Poles. 

While the poll’s result will need to be corroborated in other surveys to show that a new trend has emerged, it will certainly add fuel to the already explosive campaign.

The ruling PiS is looking to win a third straight term in office, an unprecedented feat in Polish politics, running on a platform accentuating national security at a time of war just beyond Poland’s eastern border and keeping the numerous social programmes in place.

At the same time, PiS warns that a possible opposition coalition will both weaken Poland’s geopolitical and military security and reverse the incumbent government’s welfare policies. 

The opposition keeps attacking PiS for causing inflation – which came in at 10.1% y/y in August – and the chaotic reaction to price growth that had the formally independent National Bank of Poland (NBP) hike interest rates to a 20-year high last year before unexpectedly slashing them by 75bp to 6% last week.

Fighting inflation has led to an economic slowdown. Poland’s GDP is expected to grow just 0.5% in 2023, a new forecast from the European Commission showed on September 11. The consensus among Poland-based analysts is for an expansion closer to 1%.

The ruling party is also under fire for its prolonged conflict with the European Union over rule of law that led to Brussels’ holding up billions of euros from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund.

The campaign became more heated last weekend after all key parties held rallies outlining their plans for after the election. 

KO gave their convention the most aggressive spin, naming key PiS figures – among them Chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and the central bank Governor Adam Glapinski – as future defendants before the State Tribunal.

Controversially, KO and its leader, former prime minister and European Council President, Donald Tusk, have also attacked PiS for facilitating immigration despite the ruling party’s ostensibly anti-immigration stance and repeated warnings against “Western Europe-like unrest” that could happen in “peaceful and safe Poland”.

In a recent video, KO employed similar images of migration that PiS also used in their overtly anti-immigration materials, both in the current and the previous campaigns.