By Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s parliament meets for the first time on Monday since an election in which an alliance of pro-European Union parties won a majority, heralding a new start for Polish politics.
President Andrzej Duda has asked Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to form a new government, but he has almost no chance of doing so as his nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) lost its majority in last month’s election and all other parties ruled out working with them.
The new parliament is set to draw a line under a turbulent eight-year period marked by rows with the European Union, sudden late-night votes and lawmaking sometimes so rapid that political opponents said it undercut normal parliamentary process.
“The nation has done its job, and now its representatives must repair the Republic of Poland… repair democracy,” Donald Tusk, who could be the next prime minister, told lawmakers from his Civic Coalition (KO) grouping.
The chamber will elect the speaker of parliament in what is likely to be a display of strength by the alliance of three pro-European groupings that together have 248 lawmakers in the 460-seat parliament.
“The first test will be the vote on PiS’s candidate for speaker,” Tusk said.
Szymon Holownia of the centre-right Poland 2050 party, which contested the election as part of the Third Way coalition, is widely expected to become speaker.
He would serve until 2025 when, under a coalition agreement, the role would pass to Wlodzimierz Czarzasty of the New Left.
CHALLENGES
PiS said it still hoped to form a government.
“We will do everything possible to make this happen,” government spokesperson Piotr Muller told private broadcaster TVN 24, but acknowledged that forming a government with the new parliament in place was “extremely difficult.”
Monday’s parliamentary session could also provide a glimpse of the challenges the coalition may face maintaining unity.
Some left-leaning lawmakers were disappointed the opposition coalition agreement did not make a clear declaration that abortion would be available for all during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Centre-right lawmakers ruled out including such a commitment.
Poland has some of Europe’s most restrictive laws on abortion, and a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling introduced a near total ban. The opposition said in its coalition agreement that it would invalidate the ruling.
“Today, the Left will submit two bills to legalise abortion.” New Left lawmaker Krzysztof Smiszek told news website Onet. “We will never give up on these demands.”
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
