(Bloomberg) — Poland’s ruling coalition has crumbled, endangering the nationalists’ grip on power halfway through their second term.
Premier Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday fired his deputy, Jaroslaw Gowin, who is also the leader of a small satellite party in the coalition. The move came a day before the ruling party plans to vote on legislation to tighten control over the media by ousting Discovery Inc.. The zloty was little changed near a two-week low against the euro early on Wednesday.
The dismissal was triggered by Gowin’s rejection of the ruling party’s flagship stimulus program and tax reforms, government spokesman Piotr Muller said. He invited lawmakers allied to Gowin to continue working with the government and said Law & Justice was “certain” it would maintain enough backers in parliament to implement its program.
But Gowin rejected that narrative, saying the coalition has been effectively “terminated” and that his party was open to cooperation with the opposition. Law & Justice would probably continue to rule with a minority administration, backed on an ad hoc basis by independent lawmakers as well as smaller political parties in parliament, he said.
While early elections are also possible, Law & Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in April that, despite the tensions, he doesn’t predict a new ballot before the regularly scheduled vote in late 2023.
It’s not immediately clear how many of the 13 lawmakers in Gowin’s Agreement party will leave the coalition, which until now controlled 232 out of the lower house’s 460 seats. He said his party will formally decide whether to leave the coalition on Wednesday.
Rzeczpospolita, an influential broadsheet, wrote in an editorial Wednesday that a election is probably just a question of time once Agreement exits the coalition, leaving the government and its stimulus program dependent on outside support.
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Gowin had attacked Law & Justice for poaching his lawmakers and saw himself as the voice of traditional conservative values and markets in the cabinet. More recently, he said his party won’t support the media law forcing Discovery to sell control of the biggest private television group in Poland, including a news channel that has unearthed graft and nepotism at various levels of government.
Thousands of people protested against the media law on Tuesday evening in about 100 Polish cities and towns, calling the legislation an attempt to muzzle critical journalists and reverse the country’s embrace of western democratic standards.
Poland has slid in press freedom rankings since Law & Justice took power in 2015. Besides taking on the media, authorities have also picked fights with European partners over judicial independence and LGBTQ+ rights.
To trigger an early ballot, Law & Justice would need to table a motion to dissolve parliament, which would pass only if it’s backed by 307 lawmakers — meaning support from the main opposition parties.
Opinion polls show Law & Justice winning the next elections, unless the opposition can form a unified pro-EU front, potentially under the leadership of Donald Tusk, a former EU president and Polish prime minister who last month returned to lead the Civic Platform party he founded. Kaczynski opted to stage a snap election in 2007 only to lose power for the next eight years.
Law & Justice’s only remaining partner is the party of Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who wanted Poland to veto the EU’s virus recovery package and has broached the topic of the country leaving the 27-nation bloc.
(Updates with zloty)
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