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Poland’s Morawiecki to stay on as PM if conservatives win election: deputy

04.09.2019 14:00
Mateusz Morawiecki will stay on as Poland’s prime minister if the country’s governing conservatives win next month’s parliamentary election, his deputy said on Wednesday.
Mateusz Morawiecki.
Mateusz Morawiecki.Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio

“Our candidate for prime minister is Mateusz Morawiecki; he is the prime minister, and if we win he will also be prime minister after the elections," Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin declared during an interview on private Radio Zet.


Jacek Sasin. Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio Jacek Sasin. Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio

Sasin was responding to a question about whether Morawiecki would keep his job as head of government or whether Poland’s conservative leader Jarosław Kaczyński would take over if the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party won next month’s vote, state news agency PAP reported.

Sasin replied that Kaczyński served as prime minister once in the past and that his term in power marked “a time when the Polish economy was doing very well, and when there were tax cuts."


Jarosław Kaczyński. Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio Jarosław Kaczyński. Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio

Sasin added that Kaczyński, who served as prime minister from July 2006 to November 2007, proved himself capable of being “an excellent premier.”

But “today the decision of the leadership of the United Right is that Mateusz Morawiecki is prime minister," Sasin said, as quoted by the PAP news agency.

The United Right is a coalition led by the Law and Justice party that also includes the centre-right Alliance party, headed by Science and Higher Education Minister Jarosław Gowin, and United Poland, a rightist group led by Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro.

Sasin’s statement came after Morawiecki last month said in a media interview that Kaczyński would make a better head of government after elections this fall.

Morawiecki told private broadcaster TVN24 in the interview at the time that his ruling conservative party had yet to decide who would head the government if Law and Justice won October’s parliamentary elections.

Poles will vote in parliamentary elections on October 13.

After four years in power, Morawiecki's governing Law and Justice party is bidding for a second term following a landslide win in 2015.

As election day approaches, the country's ruling conservatives are ahead in the opinion polls, while the opposition is divided into three separate camps.

Poland’s largest opposition bloc, the Civic Coalition, on Tuesday named deputy parliamentary Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska as its choice for prime minister after next month’s elections.

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP