DPolish President Andrzej Duda has tasked incumbent Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki from the national conservative PiS party with forming a government. On Monday evening in Warsaw he spoke of the “continuation of good parliamentary traditions”, according to which the force with the strongest vote receives the mandate.
Morawiecki’s appointment is logical from a formal point of view, as the PiS was once again the strongest force in the parliamentary elections on October 15th with a voter share of 35.4 percent. But the current governing party has no realistic prospect of finding enough coalition partners for a majority in the House of Representatives, the Sejm. The second-placed liberal Citizens’ Coalition of the previous opposition leader Donald Tusk, the centrist electoral alliance Third Way and the Left together have a majority of 248 out of 460 seats in the new Sejm. These three forces confirmed before and after the election that they wanted to form a government together.
The Polish constitution provides for a presidential order to be given to a promising candidate as the first step towards forming a government. If he is unable to form a government with a sufficient parliamentary majority, it will be the Sejm’s turn in a second step. In his speech, Duda said that if Morawiecki failed to form a government, parliament could propose a new candidate for government leadership.
According to a survey by the United Survey institute that was picked up by numerous media on Monday, a relative majority of Poles would like to see the appointment of former EU Council President Tusk, who headed the government in Warsaw from 2007 to 2014. 43.6 percent of those surveyed were in favor of appointing the previous opposition leader to form a government, 21.4 were in favor of appointing the previous head of government Morawiecki and 28.4 percent were in favor of giving the mandate to someone else.
A few days ago, Morawiecki even promised the conservative farmers’ party PSL, which is part of the Third Way alliance, the presidency of the government. When asked whether he could leave his post to party leader Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, he answered “yes” to the “Interia” portal. This statement should be seen as part of attempts to break the PSL MPs out of the Third Way and also out of the planned center-left alliance under Tusk. Morawiecki appealed to MPs “who are close to the social agenda, the sovereignty agenda and the issue of combating illegal migration”.
However, the PSL made it clear at the weekend after a meeting of the party executive committee that it would remain part of the Third Way and would continue to want a government with Tusk’s citizens’ coalition and the left. In addition, even if all 27 PSL MPs defected would not be enough for a PiS government majority, which would also be dependent on all the votes of the extreme right-wing confederation.
But the current governing party is trying to further motivate the PSL to change course. When the PiS-affiliated President Duda, following his decision in favor of Morawiecki, announced on Monday that he would appoint PSL MP Marek Sawicki as “senior marshal” of the Sejm, who will lead the first sessions of the new parliament, he called the former Polish agriculture minister ” a man of dialogue and cooperation”.