The opposition in the Polish parliament – Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the Left – are celebrating the establishment of a representative of their camp as speaker of the lower house of parliament, former Poland’s Got Talent host and Poland2050 party (part of the Third Way coalition) leader Szymon Hołownia. Read more.
Monday marked the first session of the Sejm (Poland’s lower house of parliament, with 460 deputies). Among other things, new parliamentarians were sworn in and a new Speaker was elected. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also tendered the resignation of his former government.
Hołownia is a catholic journalist, publicist, former host of Poland’s Got Talent, and leader of the Poland2050 party. Hołownia emerged in Polish politics in 2020 when he ran for the office of the country’s president and came in 3rd place. In 2021, he founded his party.
Poland2050 represents centrist views, leaning to the right (although one of the organisation’s promises during the last parliamentary elections was the separation of church and state).
The PiS party put forward former Speaker of the Sejm, Elżbieta Witek, as their candidate.
In the end, Hołownia won, garnering 265 votes. He received support not only from democratic opposition deputies but also from the radical-right Confederation.
Witek was supported by 193 people.
This is the first success for the democratic opposition, which won more votes in the October elections than the PiS party, which has ruled Poland since 2015 (248 seats went to the opposition, 194 to Law and Justice, 18 to the Confederation).
It is expected that it will be the democratic opposition that will form the new government, ending the power of the national conservatives in the country. However, President Andrzej Duda has decided to first entrust the mission of forming a government to the incumbent prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, although the number of Law and Justice seats does not give him a good chance of winning a vote of confidence.
In a speech after the vote, the newly elected Speaker thanked Poles for the record turnout in the October elections. He announced that he wanted to “streamline communication” between the position of Speaker of the Sejm and the media, and decided to return to press briefings and morning meetings with journalists.
He also announced the creation of a podcast to which he would invite politicians of all options.
“Thank you. I promise that this will be a new, open Sejm. In the Tenth Term (of the Sejm), Patria will always stand above the interests of one party or another,” Hołownia wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
(Bartosz Sieniawski | Euractiv.pl)
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