Strong stock market rally after record elections in Poland – E24

A victory for the EU-friendly opposition could provide access to tens of billions of euros in frozen EU funds.

On Monday morning, the benchmark WIG 20 index on the Warsaw Stock Exchange rose as much as 4.9 percent.

This is the strongest rise since May 2022, Bloomberg wrote.

Therefore, the markets appear to welcome the possibility of the country’s opposition winning Sunday’s elections.

Declared victory

When the polls came on Election Day on Sunday evening, opposition leader Donald Tusk declared victory. As a liberal and friend of the European Union, he is an obvious counter-candidate to the current right-wing nationalist government.

Tusk has a background as Poland’s former prime minister and European Union president, and is considered a political fox.

But at the present time, the final results of the elections have not been announced. But according to an opinion poll, the opposition alliance is likely to win 248 seats out of 460 in the lower house of parliament.

EU funds could be released

If the outcome is confirmed by official results by Tuesday, it will be seen as favorable for Polish financial assets, Bloomberg writes.

The new administration could free up access to tens of billions of euros in EU funds that have been withheld due to the current government’s controversial legal reforms.

“This was our best case scenario,” senior fund manager Anders Vergmann at Pinebridge Investments London tells the news agency.

The value of the Polish currency, the zloty, has also risen, with the possibility of a change in government.

On Monday morning, it rose 1.8 percent in early European trading.

Recording a high voter turnout

Many considered Sunday’s elections a crucial election for democracy in Poland.

Polls on election day show Poles flocking to the polls, NTB writes.

Preliminary figures indicate that the participation rate reached 72.9%, which is a higher percentage than when the communist government was overthrown in 1989.