Lehman Brothers warn local election result is a bad sign for EU referendum

Analysts of American investment bank Lehman Brothers are afraid that the results of the local government elections indicate that Poland's EU referendum may prove more difficult than first thought. In fact the analysts go so far as to say that the government may even lose the referendum. In its weekly report on developing markets, the analysts present two reasons for their pessimism - growing support for the Euroskeptics and a low turn out at the polls. Support for the Democratic Left Alliance and Civic Platform, the parties that support integration, was lower than was expected, while vote for anti-EU parties such as the Polish Peasants Party and Polish Families League was higher than predicted. The low turn out, in which around 30% of the public voted, is far below the 50% threshold required for the EU referendum to be valid. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 8) P.W.