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UPDATE: Kornel Morawiecki, former dissident, father of Polish PM, dies at 78

30.09.2019 13:50
Veteran Polish politician Kornel Morawiecki, a former dissident, a senior parliamentarian and the father of the country’s prime minister, has died after a long illness at the age of 78.
Kornel Morawiecki, pictured in 2016.
Kornel Morawiecki, pictured in 2016.Photo: Wojciech Kusiński/Polskie Radio

Kornel Morawiecki was a member of Poland's parliament with the Freedom and Solidarity party, which he founded in 2016.

Under communism, he was a prominent dissident and founder of the hard-line anti-communist Fighting Solidarity organisation.

After the fall of communism, Kornel Morawiecki in 1990 became leader of the Freedom Party, which was critical of the democratic opposition’s 1989 Round Table deal with the country’s communist authorities.

In 2010, he unsuccessfully ran for president, and in 2015 was elected an MP, running on the ticket of the anti-establishment Kukiz'15 group.

He opened the first session of Poland’s newly elected parliament in 2015. In 2016 he left Kukiz'15 and founded the Freedom and Solidarity group.

Born in Warsaw on May 3, 1941, Kornel Morawiecki was a theoretical physicist by education, with a PhD degree that he earned in 1970 after writing a thesis on quantum field theory.

In January this year, Kornel Morawiecki disclosed he was suffering from pancreatic cancer.

At the end of last week he was taken to a Warsaw hospital in what was reported to be critical condition.

President Andrzej Duda on Friday bestowed on Kornel Morawiecki the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state decoration, for his "contribution to democratic changes" in the country and for his "outstanding achievements in public service."

Kornel Morawiecki was the father of Poland's conservative Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

(gs/pk)

Source: TVP Info, PAP, IAR