Sunday was a great day for Polish democracy. Voters bucked the apathy of the last general election in 2005 in which only 40 per cent of them bothered to cast a ballot by pushing turnout up by at least one third. Young people especially voted in large numbers, most of them against the main conservative Law and Justice governing party led by the Kaczynski twin brothers and in favour of the liberal-right Civic Platform. In doing this so decisively they have helped form a more stable party system to replace one that was dangerously fragmented and unrepresentative. Most important, they have strongly expressed their rejection of the outgoing government's crude populist nationalism and the damage it inflicted on their country's role and reputation in Europe.
The election is an individual triumph for Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk. During the campaign he developed an increasingly sharp critique of prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski's neurotic, unpredictable style of government, culminating in their decisive television debate watched by 10 million people, which convinced many voters Mr Kaczynski would have to go. He will now make way for a government led by Mr Tusk which must link up with smaller parties if it is to rule effectively - and notably to overrule legislative vetoes from Mr Kaczynski's twin brother Lech who will be president until 2010.
Evidence that the party system is changing can be seen in the failure of the two extreme parties that formed Mr Kaczynski's coalition to make it into the new parliament. The far-right League of Polish Families and the left-wing anti-EU Self-Defence party saw their joint share decline from 15 to 3 per cent. They were punished for serial factionalism and incompetence, stoked by Mr Kaczynski's suspicions that they were continually trying to undermine him. He has now absorbed their votes and will probably consolidate his party's position on the conservative right wing of Polish politics in coming years. Mr Tusk's Civic Platform is also on the right, but is based overwhelmingly in the cities and towns of richer western Poland, whereas the Law and Justice party draws most support from the more rural and poorer east. A strong generational contrast emerges from the election.
A sharp turn away from Euroscepticism and Germanophobia can now be expected in Poland's foreign policy and was widely welcomed yesterday by other EU leaders. Mr Tusk hopes this will encourage further economic growth enabling Polish emigrants to return home. Domestically there is more of an overlap between the two major parties. Civic Platform says it will maintain low taxation policies, market opening and privatisation, while keeping on key elements of the anti-corruption policies that antagonised many Poles. Much will depend on whether the smaller Peasants Party or the Left and Democrats party can modify such policies by insisting on greater social equality and protection for weaker sections of the population who lost out in the post-communist transition. If they fail to do that Mr Kaczynski will be ready to return.