Poland faces a period of political uncertainty after an election in which opposition parties appeared to gain a combined majority.
But the ruling nationalist conservative party won more votes than any single party, and said it would try to keep governing.
The final results have not been reported by the state electoral commission.
But the polling agency Ipsos released a late exit poll on Monday morning, which combines the results of an exit poll carried out during Sunday’s election and the 50% of the votes already counted.
It showed that the ruling nationalist conservative Law and Justice party took 36.6% of the votes cast, with the opposition Civic Coalition led by Donald Tusk on 31%, the centrist Third Way coalition on 13.5%, the Left party with 8.6% and the far-right Confederation on 6.4%.
In order for a government to pass laws, it needs at least 231 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm.
According to Ipsos, the ruling Law and Justice party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski appears to have obtained 198 seats, a sharp fall from the current slim majority it has held for the past eight years.
Even with the far-right Confederation party, it would not have a majority.
However, the party’s campaign manager, Joachim Brudzinski, said in an interview on RMF FM radio that his party had won and would try to build a government led by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
“No matter how you look at it, we won,” Mr Brudzinski said.
The exit poll showed 248 seats, meaning a majority in parliament, going to Civic Coalition, Third Way and the Left together.
The electoral commission has said it expects to report the final result early on Tuesday.
It will fall to President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice, to give the nod to a party to try to build a government.
Cezary Tomczyk, the vice-chairman of Mr Tusk’s party, said the governing party would do everything to try to maintain power.
He called on it to accept the election result, saying it was the will of the people to hand over power to the opposition.
“The nation spoke,” Mr Tomczyk said.
