Poland’s main opposition party, the Conservatives (PiS), has become embroiled in a conflict over the ambitions and future of the former PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
The PiS has in the past two months lost support in opinion surveys and Morawiecki wants to lead the party and be installed as prime minister after the next parliamentary elections.
Party infighting became public on December 15 when Jacek Kurski, the former head of State television broadcaster TVP, published an extensive post on X slamming Morawiecki. It accused the former PM of being disloyal to the party’s leadership and driven by personal ambition rather than the collective good.
Morawiecki is opposed by a group of senior PiS politicians, including the former education minister Przemysław Czarnek and ex-justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro.
The leader and founder of PiS, Jarosław Kaczyński, has not as yet revealed which side he is on but has suggested that Czarnek could be a prime minister in a future government led by PiS. He did not choose Morawiecki as the presidential candidate for the party in this spring’s poll.
He chose Karol Nawrocki, the eventual winner, who was not a member of the PiS and who distanced himself from some policies pursued by Morawiecki when he was leader. They included the European Union’s Green Deal, tax rises and many of those relating to relations with Ukraine
Nawrocki’s victory seemed to have boosted Kaczyński and put to bed tensions between Morawicki and his critics. Unexpectedly, though, this autumn PiS lost support in opinion surveys while Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling Civic Coalition (KO) increased its support.
To make matters worse polling data suggested that while Tusk’s party has squeezed support out of the others that are part of the centre-left coalition government, PiS has been losing support to the right-wing Confederation of the Polish Crown led by Grzegorz Braun ME. In some polls it has overtaken the right-wing Confederation Party.
Tusk’s KO currently leads PiS by between 4 per cent and 10 per cent in the polls having enjoyed a rise of around 5 per cent at a time when PiS support has fallen by several percentage points.
Braun, who got 6 per cent in the presidential election, is now polling over 10 per cent in parliamentary polls. The Confederation Party, which had 15 per cent in the presidential election, is now polling at Braun’s current level.
Kaczyński’s attacks on the Confederation Party largely focused on its presidential candidate Sławomir Mentzen. His alleged willingness to contemplate a future coalition with Tusk’s party seem to have helped Braun’s new party rather than PiS.
The fear of becoming marginalised and PiS becoming dependent on support from both Confederation and Braun’s party triggered Morawiecki to argue that PiS should move towards the centre – and that he was the best candidate to make that happen.
Morawiecki in 2024 took over from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as leader of the European Conservative Reformists, the European Parliament grouping of which PiS is a part. He has in the past few weeks said that he wanted to be the next Polish prime minister and did not see any role for the former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro in such an administration.
He criticised Ziobro for having left the country for Budapest in response to indictments issued by the Tusk government and said that, despite himself being indicted, he would not leave the country.
In an interview with the liberal portal Gazeta pl Morawiecki, who served as PIS PM from 2017-2023, said in a national emergency such as war he could envisage being part of a coalition government with the parties that make up the Tusk-led coalition. He said he was prepared to abandon any attempts at pursuing officials with the present government for alleged breaches of the constitution and abuse of power.
Morawiecki’s most visible act of defiance against the party’s leadership, though, came when he chose not to attend the political executive of PiS on December 12. That was despite being called on publicly by the party leader Kaczyński to appear.
Instead Morawiecki chose to speak at a public meeting in the southeast of the country and on December 15 issued invitations to PiS MPs to attend a Christmas function organised by him separately from the one organised by the leadership.
In his long post on platform X, Jacek Kurski, who while he was head of TVP clashed with Morawiecki, slammed the former prime minister for “disloyalty”.
“Our party is facing a difficult time. We are facing an unprecedented attack on our existence from Tusk’s government that denies us funding and attempts to put our leaders in jail while being ready to give up Poland’s sovereignty to EU institutions to maintain power,” he said.
“At such a time when we need unity one of our top colleagues distances himself from colleagues persecuted by Tusk and signals willingness to work with the present government.”
Kurski accused Morawiecki of attempting to promote himself and of exploring the potential of forming his own party “which would be PiS-lite”, noting that Tusk’s party likely needs future allies.
“He is promoting opinion surveys showing he is the most popular right-wing politician to form a government and inviting PiS parliamentarians to a rival Christmas event while refusing to answer the call of the leader to attend official party meetings. He seems to be engaged in the realisation of his own plan,” Kurski said.
He further argued that is because “Morawiecki knows he lacks enough support in PiS and with potential allies on the Polish right to be the next PM”.
“This is because Morawiecki’s policies of acquiescing to the EU’s Green Deal and acceptance of the EU’s conditionality mechanism [making the payment of EU funds conditional on meeting rule of law criteria] never had the support of PiS as a party nor other parts of the Polish right,” Kurski added.
He also claimed that the reason for the election defeat of PiS and reduced poll ratings was because Morawiecki’s centrism allowed other right-wing forces to emerge. He also said Nawrocki won the presidential election “because he distanced himself from Morawiecki’s policies and was able to unite the right ahead of the second round of polling”.
Morawiecki’s allies reacted to Kurski’s attacks by arguing that party leader Kaczyński was fully aware and supportive of policies pursued by the Morawiecki government and accused his critics of being divisive and launching personal attacks on the former PM.
Kaczyński, in an interview for Youtube channel TAK, said he had a lengthy phone conversation with Morawiecki and that there was agreement between them to de-escalate the internal disputes that have erupted in the party.
Robert Mazurek, leading commentator for the popular YouTube broadcaster Kanał Zero, revealed in his commentary yesterday that he had spoken to a leading ally of Morawiecki who told him: “We will probably need to leave the party before we get removed.”
Mazurek, though, said. he feels “Morawiecki does not want to leave PiS and will continue to fight his corner, waiting until after the election when MPs loyal to him may hold the key to the shape of a future right-wing or centre-right coalition”.
