Duda to appoint Tusk despite warnings

11 months ago 34

President Andrzej Duda will nominate Donald Tusk as Poland’s new prime minister should he win the parliament’s bid, despite advice he should not, the president’s aide, Łukasz Rzepecki, confirmed to Radio ZET.

When asked if Duda would agree to nominate Tusk if the parliament decides to elect him, president’s aide Łukasz Rzepecki confirmed to private Radio Zet the president will deliver on his constitutional obligation.

After October’s general elections, Duda appointed Mateusz Morawiecki as the candidate of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party that won the elections to form a new government, which took oath last week.

Still, as PiS has yet to have a majority in the new parliament, it is almost certain that Morawiecki’s government will fail to obtain a vote of confidence in the voting scheduled for next Monday (11 December).

Under the constitution, in such a case, the parliament takes the initiative and elects a prime minister and ministers by a qualified majority, whom the president must appoint on their lists.

This will probably result in Tusk becoming prime minister and his three-bloc coalition coming to power. Such a scenario may be troublesome for Duda, formerly a PiS member, often accused of favouring his former party as president.

“If Donald Tusk, in the second constitutional step, manages to obtain a qualified majority, he will immediately be appointed by President Andrzej Duda,” Rzepecki said on Sunday.

He referred to a recent opinion by a former member of PiS-nominated controversial commission for investigation of Russian influence on Polish politics, Andrzej Zybertowicz, who suggested that Tusk and some of the members of his two previous governments should not be nominated for posts related to the country’s security due to alleged having cooperated with Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the past without sufficient supervision.

Zybertowicz said he was aware that the Polish constitution obliges the president to accept the parliament’s nominee for prime minister if the candidate indicated by the president fails to obtain the parliament’s bid.

Zybertowicz cited a partial report by PiS’ commission, created earlier this year, which was criticised by Polish opposition and many lawyers, but also by Brussels for being politicised and potentially targetted at PiS’ political adversaries, especially Tusk.

The law establishing the commission, dubbed “lex Tusk” in Poland, in its original shape gave the new body a right to ban from public offices individuals that the commission found have ties with Moscow.

“This is the commission’s opinion, to which the commission had a right,” Rzepecki said, adding that “the president will not take it into account” if the parliament elects Tusk for prime minister.

He also confirmed that despite the commission’s report, Duda will appoint the other figures mentioned by Zybertowicz, including former Foreign and Defence Minister Radosław Sikorski, if included in the new government.

If Morawiecki does not obtain a vote of confidence on Monday, the parliament will seek to elect a new prime minister the same day, according to the house’s speaker, Szymon Hołownia.

The wide coalition led by Donald Tusk involves his Civic Coalition (KO, EPP/S&D), centrist Third Road (Renew/EPP), co-founded by Hołownia, and the Left (S&D/Left).

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)