Polish president to meet party leaders for talks on forming government
Poland’s president will meet parliamentary party leaders next week, his office said, as the country waited to see who he would task with forming a government after the ruling nationalists lost their majority in the general election.
Pro-EU opposition parties secured a majority in Sunday’s ballot, a huge shift for Poland after eight years of feuding with Brussels over issues ranging from judicial independence to LGBTQ + rights. It also represents a setback for rightwing populism in the EU.
“Next Tuesday and Wednesday [24-25 October], at the invitation of the president of the republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, consultations with representatives of individual electoral committees ... will be held at the Presidential Palace,” the president’s office said on the X social media platform. “The meetings will be held separately with each of the election committees, in the order in accordance with the results achieved by these committees in the elections.”
Duda said before the vote that he would give the first shot at forming a cabinet to the group or party that won most ballots.
The ruling nationalist Law and Justice
party (Pis) came first in the election but is unlikely to secure a third term in government for want of a coalition ally.
The leaders of the three parties that are seeking to form a coalition have called on Duda not to delay making a decision. The president ran as an independent backed by PiS.
“Representatives of the president’s office said that the president has time, but Poland does not have time and this majority expects these decisions to be made quickly,” said Michał Kobosko, the deputy leader of Poland 2050, part of the centre-right Third Way coalition.
However, Duda’s aides have said he is in no hurry to make a decision. “The president knows his responsibilities and will not give in to pressure,” an aide, Małgorzata Paprocka, told the Rzeczpospolita daily. “A government will be formed within the timeframe laid out in the constitution, with respect for the will of citizens.”
This means the process of forming a new government in the largest country in the EU’s eastern wing could take weeks or even months.