Courtesy of KPRM

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been elected to a second term in office, making him the first incumbent prime minister in the history of post-communist Poland to lead his party to back-to-back parliamentary victories. According to the first exit polls, Mr Tusk’s party, Civic Platform (PO) won 39.6 percent of the vote while its coalition partner, the Polish People's Party (PSL) taking about 8.2 percent of the vote. After the seats are distributed, that could give the current ruling coalition over 50 percent of seats, meaning it would continue without any other coalition partners.

If another coalition partner is needed, it could either be the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which won 7.7 percent of the vote, or from Palikot's Movement (RP) which won 10.1 percent.

In the end, Poles opted for a stable and predictable Donald Tusk over the volatile and controversial Law and Justice leader, Jarosław Kaczyński. Poles know there will be difficult times ahead and they have decided that Mr Tusk is the best person to hold the reins for now.

The prime minister has led Poland with relative success through a number of difficult periods over the past four years. Most notably, Poland emerged as the only European Union member state to register positive GDP growth in 2009 – a year in which all others saw their economies contract in the wake of the financial crisis.

A year later, tragedy struck in Smolensk as the airplane carrying President Lech Kaczyński, First Lady Maria Kaczyńska, many of Poland’s top military leaders and several top politicians, crashed, killing everyone on board. The nation was left in a state of shock, but Donald Tusk responded with calm.

According to most political experts, Prime Minister Tusk handled all these situations laudably. But he has nevertheless been criticized for neglecting to embark on important economic reforms and for performing poorly when it comes to overseeing the construction of roads and highways. Mr Tusk has also been accused of focusing on PR and perception at the expense of actual policy.

The controversy surrounding the reports into the Smolensk catastrophe, and the issue of where blame should be laid, has also served to cast a shadow over Mr Tusk’s reputation.