Szymon Hołownia, Poland’s parliament Speaker and leader of Poland 2050 party, claimed he was pressured to stage a “coup” to stop Karol Nawrocki, the opposition Conservatives (PiS) winner of the presidential election, from taking office.
Poland 2050 is a centrist party and part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centre-left coalition government. Tusk, whom Hołownia did not specifically name as the direct source of the pressure, responded angrily by saying the Speaker’s remarks were irresponsible.
In an interview with commercial network Polsat on July 25, Hołownia said it had “repeatedly been proposed or it was asked of me whether I would be ready to carry out a coup d’état”.
He added that these suggestions involved blocking or delaying the inauguration ceremony for Nawrocki and that he had firmly rejected such proposals.
“But you won’t stage a coup with me. As Speaker of the Sejm, I am obliged to respect the will of the majority of voters,” Hołownia told Polsat .
He declined to disclose, for now, the names of the individuals who made these suggestions but he elaborated on what he meant by the term “coup d’état”.
“Of course, it likely doesn’t meet the strict legal definition of a coup d’état but I use the term to describe a situation where a president has been elected, and I say: I don’t like this president, so maybe I won’t swear him in,” the Speaker said.
Tusk responded to Hołownia’s remarks on the same day disapprovingly saying that the “ruling coalition is too diverse in its opinions and actions of late”.
He told a public meeting in central Poland: “You see what I have to deal with, but that was the choice made by Poles so I will continue to work.” He promised that “there will be no more jesting in my government”, an allusion to a statement he made a few days earlier that he would not tolerate government members voting against government legislation.
Tusk added: “All that happened is that I told Hołownia that there were irregularities with regard to the counting of the votes but he responded by categorically saying that he would ensure that the president-elect took the oath of office on August 6 and that was therefore the end of the matter.”
He was alluding to reports of irregularities which emerged but have been dismissed first by the courts and recently declared insubstantial by public prosecutors who investigated the claims.
The PM said that comments such as Hołownia’s could have “serious consequences,” which was interpreted meaning the ruling coalition could be at risk.
Tusk went on to chastise Hołownia and his coalition partners, comparing managing his government to the challenge of keeping children well behaved.
“When we let our children go on holiday, we tell them: ‘Don’t do stupid things, because stupid things lead to trouble.’ It is exactly the same in politics,” he said
Tusk added that he was “asking everyone who still cares as much as I do, or even just a little, about the coalition to pull themselves together and to understand that politics is serious business”.
Hołownia had already been at the centre of controversy within the coalition when it was revealed that in late June he had met the leader of the main opposition PiS party Jarosław Kaczyński to explore the possibility of an alternative government being formed.
Anna Maria Żukowska, the head of the Tusk allied Left party’s parliamentary caucus, challenged Hołownia to report the allegations of a suggested coup to prosecutors.
“As both a citizen and a public official, it is your duty to file a report with the prosecutor’s office regarding a suspected criminal act,” she said.
Żukowska added that if Hołownia failed to do so, it would mean that “either this was nothing more than rhetorical overreach, or it constitutes a form of blackmail or veiled threat”.
A similar line was taken by Sławomir Cenckiewicz, the incoming head of Poland’s National Security Bureau (BBN) said of the Speaker’s comments: “This calls for a prosecutor’s investigation.”
Polish legal organisation Ordo Iuris institute lawyer Bartosz Lewandowski announced that he had submitted a formal request to the Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office for Hołownia to be interviewed as a witness.
Meanwhile, president-elect Nawrocki was given a significant boost ahead of his inauguration on August 6 when US President Donald Trump posted on his platform Truth Social his backing for the new Polish president on July 24.
“Karol Nawrocki’s stunning victory in Poland, he’ll be a great president,” wrote Trump, adding that Nawrocki won the election because “he truly loves Poles”.
