WARSAW, poland (AP) -- A pro-business opposition party that wants to bring Poland's troops home from Iraq was headed to an overwhelming victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, exit polls showed, setting it up to oust the prime minister's staunchly pro-U.S. government.
It would be a stinging defeat for Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose conservative Law and Justice party was elected two years ago and has since been criticized for its combative approach to the European Union and efforts to purge former communists from positions of influence.
Appearing before supporters late Sunday, Kaczynski said "we didn't manage in the face of this unprecedented broad front of attacks," referring to the opposition's campaign.
Donald Tusk, the leader of the opposition Civic Platform party, said the election showed that Poles want to focus on the economic opportunities presented by the country's membership in the EU, which Poland joined in 2004.
"It is Civic Platform's intention to make Poles feel much better in their own country than they have felt so far," Tusk told cheering supporters. "We are going to do huge work and we will do it well. You have the right to rejoice today."
State TV projections showed the Civic Platform party and its preferred coalition partner, the small Polish Peasants Party, winning a majority of seats in the lower house, which would allow them to form a government together and knock Kaczynski from power.
An exit poll for TVP state television showed 43.7 percent of people voting for Civic Platform and 30.4 percent choosing Kaczynski's Law and Justice party.
A TVN24 private television exit poll showed a 44.2 percent to 31.3 percent edge for Civic Platform, and also showed Civic Platform's preferred coalition partner, the Polish Peasants Party, with 7.9 percent -- enough to give the two parties a majority of the popular vote.
TVN24 showed Civic Platform winning 227 seats in parliament -- just four short of a majority on its own -- and the Peasants taking 27 seats for a potential 254-seat majority.
The government will not be formed until after coalition negotiations in the coming weeks.
High turnout caused some polling stations to run out of ballots and stay open longer than scheduled, delaying the release of the first exit polls for nearly three hours. By late afternoon, more than 38 percent of Poland's 30 million eligible voters had cast ballots, and some estimates had final turnout topping 50 percent.
Kaczynski had sought the elections two years ahead of schedule after his party could not overcome bickering with the two smaller parties it needed to form a majority.
Kaczynski has clashed with other EU countries over a new treaty to govern how the union makes decisions, demanding more say for Poland. He is also at odds with the EU over environmental protection, government support for Polish firms, and the death penalty, which he supports although Poland does not have it.
Kaczynski had gambled that the election would give him a stronger hand to govern, but he risked losing power to Tusk's Civic Platform, which has seen its support rise in the polls since an Oct. 12 televised debate that Tusk is widely seen as having won.
Voter Malgorzata Szulc, 21, said Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, were too confrontational.
"The Kaczynskis have made a lot of enemies in Europe. We need friends, not enemies," she said at one of Warsaw's polling stations.
Tusk also wants strong ties with Washington. He has nonetheless questioned whether Kaczynski's two-year-old government was driving a strong enough bargain in negotiations to host 10 U.S. interceptor missiles aimed at stopping potential attacks from Iran.
The country's deployment training Iraqi security forces has been extended through the end of the year by the current government, but Kaczynski has suggested it could be extended again.
Tusk's party, on the other hand, wants the troops to come home, although some party officials have said that could take as long as until the end of 2008.
Tusk's party also calls for additional security guarantees for Poland such as the U.S. Patriot short-range anti-missile and anti-aircraft system, and suggests Kaczynski has failed to win rewards such as visa-free travel for Poles to the United States.
Both Kaczynski and Tusk began their political careers as anti-communist dissidents in the Solidarity movement, which paved the way for the fall of communism in 1989. Today, however, they part ways on how to deal with the ex-communists who were once their enemies.
Kaczynski favors a belated purge of ex-communists and their secret collaborators from public life -- a reckoning purposely avoided in the peaceful transition of power. He maintains that the ex-communists continue to wield undue influence. But a court overturned his legislation to have up to 700,000 people, including journalists and teachers, screened for collaboration.
Tusk's party opposes that kind of reckoning, saying that Poland should not divert its attention from the new economic opportunities presented since the country joined the EU in 2004.
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