2023-11-07 04:29:57
A good three weeks following the success of a three-party opposition alliance in the parliamentary elections in Poland, President Andrzej Duda made a controversial decision to further delay the transfer of power. On Monday, the head of state gave the previous Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki from the national conservative PiS the order to form a government.
Duda said in Warsaw that he followed the good parliamentary tradition, according to which a representative of the strongest faction is given the task of forming a government. This move by the president, who himself comes from the PiS camp, might bring further weeks of political instability to Poland. Duda had previously set the date for the constituent session of the new parliament on November 13th – almost a month following the election.
In the parliamentary election on October 15th, Donald Tusk’s liberal-conservative Citizens’ Coalition (KO) won a clear majority of seats together with two other opposition parties, the conservative Third Way and the left-wing alliance Lewica. The three parties are already working on a coalition agreement.
The previous ruling party PiS, on the other hand, became the strongest political force, but missed an absolute majority and does not have a coalition partner. This means that Morawiecki’s attempt to form a government is most likely doomed to failure.
In Poland it is a political custom, but not a requirement, for the head of state to award the task of forming a government to a representative of the party that has become the strongest political force. If his proposal for a cabinet does not receive a majority in parliament, it is the turn of the other factions.
Donald Tusk criticized the decision as an incomprehensible mistake. The current government camp wanted to “steal a few more days, two or three weeks of time,” the news portal TVN24.pl quoted the opposition leader as saying.
In the end, however, this will only be a degrading “humiliation” for the election losers and we will see how “unpatriotic and anti-citizen it is.” Every day that the change of government is delayed is a “lost day for all Poles,” complained Tusk.
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