Polish prime minister loses confidence vote, clearing way for Donald Tusk

FILE PHOTO: Polish politician Donald Tusk, leader of Civic Coalition (KO) and the opposition’s candidate for future Prime Minister, looks on, on the day of his meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels, Belgium October 25, 2023. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/FILE PHOTO

By Anna Koper and Pawel Florkiewicz

WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland’s prime minister lost a vote of confidence on Monday, clearing the way for a broad coalition of pro-European Union parties led by Donald Tusk to take power.

The vote ends eight years of rule by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which critics say undermined judicial independence, turned state-owned media into a propaganda outlet and fomented prejudice against minorities such as immigrants and the LGBT community.

FILE PHOTO: Leader of Civic Platform (PO) Donald Tusk attends the first session of the newly elected Polish parliament in Warsaw, Poland November 13, 2023. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/FILE PHOTO

Tusk, a former European Council president, has vowed to mend Warsaw’s relations with Brussels and unblock billions in funds earmarked for Poland which have been withheld due to concerns over the rule of law.

Of 456 members of parliament who voted, 266 voted that they had no confidence in Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. He had the support of 190 lawmakers.

“We are saying goodbye to PiS … history is being made,” Monika Rosa, a lawmaker from Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) grouping wrote on social media platform X.

PiS says that it defended Poland’s sovereignty and traditions from foreign interference during its time in power, while improving living standards for millions of Poles by introducing social benefits and raising the minimum wage.

“We introduced a new socio-economic model – the first steps in creating a country of solidarity,” Morawiecki said during an address to parliament on Monday morning.

PiS came first in the election and President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the party, gave the party the first shot at forming a government. However the fact that it lacked a majority and that all other parties had ruled out working with it made this impossible.

Asked what kind of opposition PiS would be, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told reporters it would be “tough”.

Parliament will vote on selecting a new prime minister on Monday evening, due to be around 1815 GMT, with Tusk almost certain to be the choice of most lawmakers. He will then address parliament on Tuesday.

RECORD TURNOUT

Poland’s October election saw a record turnout of 74% as people in some locations queued for hours to vote.

“They didn’t give up in these lines, they just stayed there until midnight and they still wanted to be part of this change,” parliament speaker Szymon Holownia told reporters.

“Dear members of parliament … the power that we showed on Oct. 15 is in our hands.”

There has been huge interest in the workings of Poland’s parliament since the election and subscriptions to the chamber’s YouTube channel have rocketed.

Certain sittings have attracted well over a million viewers on the platform and one Warsaw cinema showed Monday’s session on to the big screen, attracting so much interest that around 2,000 people were on a waiting list for tickets.

Some observers have also attributed the surge in interest in part to the appointment of Holownia as speaker. His wise-cracking approach to running debates has charmed many who first got to know him in his previous role as the host of a prime-time talent show.

Poland’s first democratically elected president after the fall of communism, the Solidarity trade union leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa was in attendance and received a standing ovation from the coalition set to take power.

Dressed in a sweater bearing the word “Constitution”, which opponents of PiS wear to show their condemnation of what they say was democratic backsliding under the party’s rule, Walesa, 80, had just left hospital after a bout of COVID to attend.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Kuba Stezycki, Anna Koper, Justyna Pawlak, Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Ros Russell and Alison Williams)