By Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Karol Badohal
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's opposition looks likely to return to power following Sunday's high-stakes election, ending eight years of nationalist rule, but it will face an uphill struggle to undo reforms that have sorely tested Warsaw's ties with the European Union.
Partial official results and exit polls suggest the incumbent Law and Justice (PiS) party will remain the biggest party but short of a parliamentary majority. A late exit poll by Ipsos published on Monday afternoon gave PiS 196 seats in the 460-member lower house of parliament, against 249 for the main opposition bloc led by the liberal Civic Coalition (KO).
Since sweeping to power in 2015, PiS has feuded with its EU partners over media freedoms and judicial reforms that critics say politicised the courts. A near total abortion ban also set Poland apart from most of Europe.
PiS said its goal has been to rid Poland of the vestiges of its communist past, make it more secure in its borders and protect traditional Catholic values. Critics accuse it of a power grab and of putting Poland on an authoritarian path.
Any legislative efforts to reverse those changes could run into opposition from President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally elected in 2020 for a second and final five-year term. Though parliament has more power in Poland, the president enjoys veto powers.
"Remedying the rule of law damage ... will be very difficult as the president may veto legislation or involve the discredited and captured 'Constitutional Tribunal'," said Laurent Pech, dean of law and head of the Sutherland School of Law in Dublin, in an emailed message.
Critics say PiS contravened the constitution by appointing three judges to the Constitutional Tribunal early in its term.
Duda has not said whether he might veto legislative changes and Reuters could not reach his press office for comment.
At the heart of PiS's judicial reforms is a disciplinary body for judges, which Brussels says violates EU law. Tackling the issue will be key to unfreezing billions of euros in EU aid.
"In addition, each of Poland's top courts and the body in charge of nominating judges have been corrupted and individuals who benefited from unlawful appointments cannot be expected to start complying with the rule of law on their own volition," Pech said.
The opposition also plans to dismantle a politicised body responsible for appointing judges and to separate the functions of justice minister and prosecutor general.
"I suspect President Duda does not want to be remembered as the president blocking solutions good for Poland," said KO spokesman Jan Grabiec.
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While there is little disagreement among Poland's mainstream opposition over the need to scrap PiS's judicial reforms, abortion may prove much more divisive.
KO, led by former European Council president Donald Tusk, says it will seek legislation to allow for abortion up to 12 weeks without limitations, in a major turnaround for the party which long avoided taking a clear stance on the issue.
But its likely coalition partner, the more conservative Third Way, wants Poles to decide the matter in a referendum.
PiS says it opposes abortion but argues that a 2021 ban, which makes an exception for terminations only in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the woman's health, is a result of a Constitutional Tribunal ruling it had no power over. Its rivals say the court is politicised, which PiS denies.
Addressing what critics say is biased reporting by public television could also prove awkward, observers say.
On the campaign trail, Tusk said he needed 24 hours to implement legal changes to remove PiS loyalists from the public broadcaster TVP. KO says they have turned TVP into a propaganda outlet.
"That's the first thing to show, something that demonstrates a change that public TV has to be public, not party TV," said Ewa Kulik-Bielińska, executive director at the Batory Foundation, a democracy watchdog.
The key challenge will be finding a legal way to fire the head of TVP - who is formally responsible for all personnel decisions - without the approval of the PiS-dominated National Media Council.
"It's not easy to change the Media Council," said Kulik-Bielińska. "There has to be, again, a reform of the bill and that has to be adopted by the parliament."
Last month, KO said it would convene a state tribunal to consider allegations that leading figures in PiS as well as allies including the president and the governor of the central bank had violated Poland's constitution.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Gareth Jones)
