Internal feud forces over 30 MPs out of Poland's main opposition PiS party
More than 30 lawmakers have resigned from Poland's main opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced on Friday, marking the sharpest internal schism since the party lost power in 2023.
The exodus follows a midnight Thursday deadline imposed by the party's leadership, which gave parliamentarians an ultimatum to sign a declaration confirming they do not belong to external associations or to face immediate expulsion.
The political crisis centres on 'Development Plus', a newly formed association founded in April by PiS vice-chairman and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Morawiecki created the group to attract voters dissatisfied with the current right-wing landscape, including members of PiS, the far-right Confederation party and the ultra-nationalist Confederation of the Polish Crown.
However, Kaczynski viewed the move as an existential threat to party unity ahead of the 2027 parliamentary elections, describing the association as part of a pre-planned conspiracy to fracture opposition.
"In this situation, we could not look at the association as anything other than an element of that very plan - a plan to divide the party," Kaczynski told reporters on Friday.
He said that a proposal to split the party had been floated weeks ago by a "credible, very significant" internal figure, a claim he said was repeated across three separate lengthy discussions, including two private meetings. He added that signing the non-affiliation pledge was meant to be a simple declaration that lawmakers would not participate in such a division.
According to Kaczynski, the party leadership had offered major concessions to the Morawiecki faction behind the scenes, dropping initial demands to entirely dissolve Development Plus.
"We went to far-reaching concessions", Kaczynski said. "It was only about freezing its activities until the elections. That was also rejected."
Every parliamentarian knew the consequences of refusing to sign, he added, dismissing various explanations from the rebel lawmakers as "strange and sometimes amusing." He confirmed that the PiS Political Committee will convene on Tuesday to formally accept and process the resignations in line with party statutes.
The breakaway faction, however, immediately challenged Kaczynski's version of events. PiS MEP Piotr Mueller, a prominent member of 'Development Plus', clarified on X that no member of the association had actually handed in a resignation.
"None of the Law and Justice members who are in the 'Development Plus' association submitted a resignation from party membership. The declarations presented for signature did not concern party membership," he wrote, adding that the lawmakers were being forced out rather than leaving voluntarily.
While the precise number of PiS lawmakers who refused to sign the loyalty pledge has yet to be officially confirmed, the party leadership treats the missing signatures as an automatic exit from the party ranks. If more than 30 MPs are ultimately pushed out of the main opposition bloc, the rebel group will easily exceed the 15-lawmaker threshold required to establish a new, independent parliamentary club in the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament.
The defections follow weeks of escalating public tension between rival party factions. While a competing internal group led by Jacek Sasin, 'Poland First', complied with leadership directives and disbanded, Morawiecki's camp resisted. Earlier, 45 PiS lawmakers had signed a joint letter defending Development Plus as a vital tool to win back lost voters. (PAP)
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