Tusk's government wins confidence vote
The opposition government presented by Donald Tusk, the newly elected prime minister, has secured a vote of confidence in the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, on Tuesday.
In the vote, 248 MPs in the Sejm dominated by opposition parties voted for the government, while 201 MPs were against it and no-one abstained.
The so-called October 15 Coalition government was named by Tusk after "a historic day" of Poland's last parliamentary election, when the eight-year rule of the Law and Justice (PiS) government came to an end.
Despite winning most seats, 194, in the 460-member lower house, PiS lost majority in the wake of the October ballot that saw a record turn-out and paved the way for the three coalition parties to form a pro-EU government headed by Tusk.
A former Polish prime minister and a former European Council president, and until now the opposition leader, Tusk was elected prime minister by the Sejm on Monday after the PiS government of Mateusz Morawiecki failed to win the Sejm’s vote of confidence.
Tusk and his cabinet will be sworn in at 9am on Wednesday by Andrzej Duda, the Polish president.
The coalition has 248 votes in the Sejm, enjoying a comfortable majority provided the three parties can govern together without major disputes in the four-year parliamentary term.
The main obstacle for the coalition will be the power of the president, who is a PiS ally, to veto laws passed by the new parliament. Duda will stay in office until mid-2025. (PAP)
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