Poland's ruling pro-European coalition parties came out on top in local elections on Sunday, seen as a first test after the group's remarkable victory in parliamentary elections last year, exit polls showed.
The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled for years before losing power to Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-European alliance, won the most votes for a single party - 33.7%, according to the IPSOS institute.
Tusk's centrist Civic Coalition (CoC) got 31.9%, while its allies, the Christian Democratic Third Way movement and the Left Party, got 13.5% and 6.8% respectively.
The far-right Confederation party - PiS's only potential ally - won 7.5%.
Tusk celebrated another victory for the pro-European alliance after the 15 October parliamentary elections that returned it to power. "October 15 came again in April," he said.
Voters in the 38-million-strong EU and NATO member state elected mayors and members of local and regional authorities from among nearly 200,000 candidates.
The Civic Coalition won convincing victories in the mayoral race in the capital Warsaw and in the port city of Gdansk, the coalition's two main strongholds.
Tusk's ally Rafal Trzaskowski, who won a new term as mayor of Warsaw, said the results were "another step on the road to ensuring that the populists represented by PiS never return to power".
However, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski was pleased that his movement remained the largest party in the country.
"Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated," he said, borrowing a famous line from writer Mark Twain.
Poland's election commission said it expected to announce final results on April 10.
The election campaign focused mainly on local issues such as transport, housing and strengthening local and regional authorities after years of centralisation pushed by PiS.
The campaign was marked by farmers' rallies - in protest against EU environmental regulations and imports of cheap grain from Ukraine - financial scandals linked to the previous government and a rift in the ruling coalition over proposals to liberalise abortion law.
As expected, voter turnout lagged behind the record 74.4% turnout in last year's parliamentary elections that brought the Tusk-led coalition to power.
According to Ipsos' exit poll, turnout was 51.5% and, unlike in the general election, young voters were not particularly likely to participate in the local vote. /BGNES
