Polish elections

The governing conservative party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski suffered a strong defeat at the hands of the centre-right opposition in Sunday's elections.

The opposition leader and would-be prime minister Donald Tusk has promised to restore the country's relations with major EU states and improve finances as part of a strategy for the early adoption of the bloc's single currency.

Early poll results suggested Civic platform party (PO) had received the biggest share of the vote. It gained around 42 percent beating its main competitor, the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), which received around 32 percent of the votes. The two other parties that made it into the parliament are the Left and Democrats of ex-president Alexander Kwasniewski - third place (13%) - and the Polish Peasants' party (9%), expected to join the ruling coalition.

As predicted, the Self-defence party and the League of Polish families - the former coalition partners of the outgoing prime minister Kaczynski until a clash in late August - did not pass the five percent parliamentary threshold.

For Mr Tusk, 50, Sunday's election means success at the third attempt, as he lost to Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother Lech, Poland's president, in both parliamentary and presidential elections in 2005.

Mr Tusk is of Kashubian origin, a 300,000-strong minority in the north-west part of the country, with some of his political opponents accusing him of being too pro-German. For his part, Mr Tusk has said he wants to restore relations with Germany after several bitter clashes by the Kaczynski government with Berlin, mainly over historic issues and contacts with Russia. His PO party is also aiming to slash red tape and introduce a flat rate tax to make the country more business-friendly as well as conclude the privatisation process in the remaining state sectors.

The victorious Civic Platform party also plans to pull Polish troops from Iraq early in 2008, a top party official said, according to Reuters.