Four more years: photo - PAP/Pawel Supernak
“Remember that moment four years ago,” Tusk said in an address broadcast from his party's election headquarters, “when with such great joy and enthusiasm, we received the news about the result of the elections at that time. I deeply believed that our victory made sense.
“I would like to thank Poles that four years later, that in these elections – the most important features of a democracy - they again confirmed that those moments made sense, and indeed that these last four years have made sense,” he said.
“I would like to thank all those Poles who voted for us, as well as those that didn't... We will work for everyone, regardless of how you voted.”
Tusk added that “these next four years will be an even greater challenge, because we will have to work twice as hard, and twice as fast... I believe that these next four years will be better.”
Tusk also thanked his wife Malgorzata Tusk, saying that “she had stuck out four years that were not so easy, and indeed that that the last 35 years with me have not been easy.”
Referring to his party's erstwhile “policy of love,” launched over a year ago, he claimed that he has not changed “this most important outlook on the world – that love is more important than power.”
Meanwhile, Tusk's chief adversary, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, of the socially conservative Law and Justice party (PIS), said that he “respected the results of the election,” which had given him 30.1 percent of the vote.
However, he said that the next four years “will convince Poles that changes are needed.”
Kaczynski insisted that ultimately, his party will win, “because we are in the right.”
Tusk has already ruled out a coalition with the anti-clerical Palikot Movement party, which received 10.1 percent of the vote. Thus a renewed coalition with the Polish Peasant's Party (8.2 percent) is a feasible scenario.
“Tomorrow comes the time for first talks, but we will wait to hear the official results,” Tusk said. (nh)