Poland’s president to swear in 14-day government

Following a national election in October, Poland’s president is swearing in Mateusz Morawiecki, who has held the job of prime minister since late 2017.

According to the constitution, Morawiecki will have 14 days to try to build a coalition that can win a majority of support in the parliament.

But it’s looking like a lost cause; his nationalist and conservative Law and Justice party has no coalition partners after losing its parliamentary majority and no other parties want to join its government.

Morawiecki says he is trying to find partners to govern with, but himself puts his chances at “ten per cent or even less.”

Critics have denounced the decision to tap a government with no apparent chance of winning parliamentary backing as a hopeless act of political theatre.

They point out that the outgoing party is using the time to make more appointments in order to extend its influence over state bodies – even after giving up the reins of government. 

In recent days, loyalists have been nominated to head the state auditing body and the financial supervision authority.

After eight years in power, Law and Justice – which Duda is politically aligned with – won the most votes in the election. But it lost its parliamentary majority, getting just 194 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm.

Power is now passing, albeit slowly, to three pro-European Union parties that ran on separate ballots but vowed to work together. 

They jointly gained a parliamentary majority of 248 seats and are already leading the work of the parliament.

Their candidate for prime minister is Donald Tusk, who held that position from 2007 to 2014 before becoming the president of the European Council for five years.

He is on track to becoming prime minister again after Morawiecki’s time runs out on 11 December.