Morawiecki’s bid for a mostly female government could lose confidence vote

The proposal for a new PiS-led government, in which more than half of the new ministers are women and many are new faces, was unveiled by Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday but risks losing a vote of confidence for lack of a parliamentary majority.

Despite winning the general elections, the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS, ECR) party failed to secure a majority, unlike the coalition of three opposition blocs, Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO, EPP/S&D), centrist Third Road (Renew/EPP) and the Left (S&D/Left).

Still, Polish President and former PiS member Andrej Duda appointed PiS’ Morawiecki as prime minister, allowing the party to find coalition partners.

However, regardless of Morawiecki’s efforts, no party accepted his invitation to coalition talks.

While PiS head Jarosław Kaczyński called the new cabinet “political and expert” and said it was his idea to take such an approach, many political observers did not share his enthusiasm.

“A few women agreeing to take part in this circus is their business. But talking about a parity (…) in a government which will probably only succeed in collecting the minister’s payoff is spitting in (all) women’s faces,” journalist Beata Mikołajewska wrote on X.

As for the new faces, Polish media quoted sources close to the matter as saying that most prominent PiS figures had turned down offers to join the government, as had most MPs. Euractiv understands that they did not want to participate in a doomed project, particularly for fear of embarrassment.

“Morawiecki proposed a government of miserable shadows, consisting of the third row of PiS politicians,” Left MP Krzysztof Gawkowski told the Polish Press Agency.

“It is clear that there were few people from PiS willing to join the government,” so it was Morawiecki who was desperately looking for people to fill ministerial posts, he argued.

Should Morawiecki’s new cabinet fail to win a vote of confidence in parliament, it will be up to parliament to elect a prime minister and ministers. This will likely result in the Tusk camp coming to power, with the latter as prime minister.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)