Poland's new parliament choses a speaker, but the transition of power is delayed by president

Nov 13, 2023 5:08 PM EDT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki offered his conservative government's resignation on Monday as required as the newly elected parliament met for the first time in a protracted transition of power following last month's election.

The lower chamber, or Sejm, in its first vote overwhelmingly chose center-right Szymon Holownia, an opponent of Morawiecki, as its speaker.

An alliance of pro-European Union parties vowing to restore democratic standards won a strong parliamentary majority in the Oct. 15 election and is expected to take power. Its candidate for prime minister is Donald Tusk, the centrist and pro-EU former prime minister.

But the alliance will have to wait, perhaps for weeks. Conservative President Andrzej Duda, who is allied with Morawiecki's right-wing Law and Justice party, is asking Morawiecki to try to build another government and will reappoint him as a prime minister candidate on Monday evening.

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Morawiecki in an address to parliament expressed a desire to build a new government that transcends party divisions. When he appealed for support, his critics responded with laughter.

Duda, whose term runs for another year and a half, is expected to have a difficult relationship with the new legislature. He has already angered the winning coalition by asking Morawiecki to try to build a government even though he is far short of a majority.

In the new parliament's first vote, Holownia with the winning coalition was backed by 265 lawmakers while a candidate from Morawiecki's party received 193.

"After this vote there can be no doubt that there is a majority in the Sejm that is ready to take responsibility for Poland," said Holownia, the leader of the Poland 2050 party and a rising star in politics.

He stressed that this parliament will no longer serve the government by pushing through controversial laws, as was the case under Law and Justice rule.

Among Holownia's first decisions was one to remove barriers that the previous government put up around the parliament building following massive protests. As he spoke, activists and others were already dismantling them.

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Duda called on the legislature to rise above divisions but warned that he would use his power of the presidential veto to defend "controversial" solutions.

"The constitutional order must be preserved, I will not agree to any circumvention or bending of the law," Duda said, to some laughter. Law and Justice and Duda himself have been accused by critics of violating procedures in recent years.

Tusk and his allies accuse Duda of disrespecting the will of the voters by not giving them the first chance at governing. His coalition vows to rebuild the legal order in Poland and bolster foreign alliances and security at a time of war in neighboring Ukraine.

Tusk says his future government will work to obtain billions of euros in EU funding that were frozen due to Law and Justice's laws that were criticized as eroding the independence of the courts.

Law and Justice received 194 seats in the 460-member Sejm. The winning coalition holds 248 seats. It includes parties ranging from conservatives to the left. They ran separately but promise to work together after eight years of Law and Justice rule. In the vote for Holownia, they were supported by the far-right Confederation party.

The 100-seat Senate, where the Tusk-led alliance won an overwhelming majority, held its first session Monday afternoon.

Left: Polish President Andrzej Duda speaks during the first session of the newly elected Polish parliament in Warsaw, Poland November 13, 2023. Photo by Kacper Pempel/REUTERS