Poles began voting on Sunday in a divisive election that the governing populists look likely to win after welfare-giveaways and LGBT rights attacks. 

The right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party has sought to garner support from poorer rural voters by pairing family values with popular new child allowances, as well as tax breaks for low-income earners and hikes to pensions and the minimum wage. 

Their majority could be at risk, however, as their opposition received a last-minute boost when author Olga Tokarczuk, a renowned government critic who won the Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday, urged Poles to choose wisely "between democracy and authoritarianism," calling the vote the "most important" since the fall of the Polish United Workers Party in 1989. 

Kaczynski is regarded by many as Poland's powerbroker but he has also provoked social division by attacking sexual minorities and rejecting Western liberal values, with the silent blessing of Poland's influential Catholic Church which is considered as greatly influencing rural voters. 

Kaczynski is one of several populist leaders in the European Union favoring greater national sovereignty over the federalism advocated by powerhouses such as France and Germany. 

Kaczynski's arch-rival, the opposition Citizen's Coalition (KO), which is supported by outgoing EU council President Donald Tusk, receives the majority of its support from urban supporters upset by the PiS's divisive politics, judicial reforms threatening the rule of law, graft scandals and monopolisation of public media. 

The left condemns the anti-LGBT drive and close church ties but supports the same welfare goals as the PiS. This means the left is highly likely to get back into parliament after a four-year hiatus.  

Two separate opinion polls published on Friday suggested that the PiS's majority could be under threat from the right centrist and leftist KO farmer's party. The results from this showed that the PiS scored 40-41.7% support, with KO on 41.4-45%.

Similar to voting patterns in Western Europe, Kaczynski has benefited from a populist backlash against perceived liberal urban elites. 

The PiS party bid to build a welfare state is targeted at Poles who feel that they have gained very little from free-market growth since 1989. 

Critics say that the high levels of economic growth under the PiS is largely due to external factors. 

Unemployment in Poland with its 38 million people is at an all-time low of five percent, in a tight labor market that the OECD says became the world's top temporary labor destination in 2017. 

A high number of Poles left the country for employment in the west after the country joined the EU in 2004. Many of the job positions that were left vacant were plugged by 1.2 million temporary workers. A large majority of these were Ukrainians. 

The turnout of voters in the 2015 election was 50.92%. 

The first exit polls are expected after voting ends at 1900 GMT. Preliminary results are due on Monday.