Hopes that a government can take power quickly in Poland to staunch a fiscal crisis and relaunch European Union entry talks were finally dashed today when official election results confirmed no party had won a majority.
The reformed communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) won 41 per cent in Sunday's vote, ejecting the Solidarity government from parliament but falling short of the majority that pre-election opinion polls had predicted.
In burying the Solidarity heirs to Poland's people-power revolution of 1989, protest voters elected populists whose euro-scepticism may hamper Warsaw's talks to join the EU and even delay the bloc's wider eastward enlargement.
Uncertainty and the populists' attacks on the National Bank of Poland left the bank no room to cut high interest rates at its monthly meeting, prompting the International Monetary Fund to call for an easing of policy.
Final seat allocations were not completed, but an unofficial tally by the local PAP news agency put prime minister-elect Mr Leszek Miller 15 seats short of the majority he would have needed for a new government to hit the ground running.
Mr Miller, who faces a tough choice between forming a minority cabinet or seeking a potentially troublesome coalition partner, was expected to put out feelers to other parties tomorrow.