President to talk with all political groups next week over forming new Polish government

Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, will hold talks next week with each group that has won seats in the new parliament about forming a government. After elections, it is the president’s role to name a candidate for prime minister, who then has the first shot at forming a government.

Traditionally, the party with the largest share of the vote is given that opportunity. In this case that is the current ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. However, PiS lost its parliamentary majority at the elections and other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with it.

The three main opposition parties – the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) and The Left (Lewica) – together do have a majority and want to form a new coalition government. That has led some to call for them to be given the first opportunity to do so as the only viable option.

“Next week, President Andrzej Duda will invite all [electoral] committees one by one for consultations on the first step [in the process of forming a new government],” Marcin Mastalerek, an advisor to the president, told broadcaster Radio Zet this morning.

The presidential chancellery itself announced that those talks would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday at the presidential palace in Warsaw.

“The meetings will be held separately with each of the election committees, in the order according with the results achieved by these committees in the elections,” the statement added. “Electoral committee” is the term used in Poland for individual parties or coalitions that stand in elections.

PiS won the largest share of the vote (35.38%), followed by KO (30.70%), Third Way (14.40%), The Left (8.61%) and Confederation (7.16%).

Yesterday, Małgorzata Paprocka – a minister in the president’s chancellery with responsibility for overseeing issues relating to the president’s constitutional powers – suggested that, in accordance with tradition, the largest party, that is PiS, would be given the first opportunity to form a government.

However, today, another senior aide to Duda, Marcin Przydacz, the head of the president’s International Policy Office, offered a more nuanced message in an interview with broadcaster TVN.

“PiS won the elections and therefore, according to established custom, it has the right to think of itself as the future ruler and try to form a coalition,” he said, echoing Paprocka.

But, “on the other hand, the president will take into account political reality”, added Przydacz. When considering who to nominate as prime minister, “of course the president will take into account what votes [in parliament] will come from individual [electoral] committees or, in the future, parliamentary caucuses”.

Within 30 days of the elections, the president must nominate a candidate for prime minister and call the first sitting of the new parliament. A vote of confidence is then held in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, regarding the proposed new government.

If it wins that vote, then it remains in office. If it loses it, then the Sejm has the opportunity to pick its own candidate for prime minister and then hold a vote of confidence in the government proposed by them.

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Main image credit: Andrzej Hrechowicz/KPRP

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.