Direction dispute escalates: More than 30 MPs leave Poland's PiS around former Prime Minister Morawiecki

The conflict between Kaczynski and Morawiecki had been smoldering for months. In March, the party leader had named the arch-conservative former Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek as the PiS's top candidate for the parliamentary election scheduled for autumn 2027. With this decision, Kaczynski wanted, by his own account, to make the PiS attractive to voters of right-wing radical parties, which together reach about 20 percent in polls. Morawiecki and his supporters in the economically liberal wing of the party, however, considered this course a fundamental mistake.

Czarnek nomination as trigger

Morawiecki reacted to the shift to the right by founding the association "Rozwoj Plus" (Development Plus). The former prime minister, who headed the Polish government from 2017 to 2023 and previously served as Development and Finance Minister, wanted to use this platform to bundle moderate positions within the PiS and to reach new voter groups. According to his information, 30 to 40 party members joined him, who simultaneously sit for the PiS in the Sejm. The party leadership initially tolerated the association, even though Kaczynski had once spoken of "two lungs" in the PiS.

The turning point came with an ultimatum: Kaczynski ultimately demanded that the group dissolve, that all members submit a written declaration of loyalty, and that they refrain from activities in "Development Plus". Morawiecki said to the television channel TVN: "Ich unterzeichne keine Loyalitätserklärungen." His goal had been to be able to concentrate exclusively on reaching new voter groups, he explained. To this end, he had even offered Kaczynski to resign his position as deputy party leader. A three-hour "last-chance conversation" between the two on Thursday, however, yielded no result.

Ultimatum and declaration of loyalty

The blame game followed immediately. Kaczynski spoke of "Intrigen" within his ranks. "Nun aber habe ich den Eindruck, dass es Menschen gibt, die sehr hart arbeiten, die unserem Vaterland Schweiß, Blut und Tränen opfern, und solche, die sich lieber mit Intrigen beschäftigen." Alluding to the communist past, he added: "Das hätte man von mir in den 1980er Jahren verlangt", referring to the persecution of his father by the communist secret service. Morawiecki and his supporters saw things exactly the other way round. "Liebe Intriganten, vielleicht war es ja genau das, was ihr beabsichtigt habt: uns aus der PiS zu verdrängen", said Morawiecki. The declarations of loyalty had in reality been an attempt to silence his group.

"Wir wollen uns auf keinen Fall im Streit oder mit stärkeren negativen Gefühlen trennen - es hat sich einfach so ergeben", Morawiecki told the channel TVN. "Bis zuletzt habe man um die Einheit der Partei gekämpft." But the atmosphere was visibly poisoned. On the platform X, Morawiecki also wrote about the backstory: "Die kämpfen so um die Einheit der Partei, dass kein Stein auf dem anderen bleibt." Morawiecki worked as a historian after the democratic change in Poland in leadership positions at several banks before joining the PiS in 2016.

Greatest crisis since the party's founding

The PiS is thus in the greatest crisis since its founding in 2001. At that time, Kaczynski had launched the party together with his twin brother Lech. Since then, the PiS has governed Poland between 2005 and 2007 as well as from 2015 to 2023, provided the president in Andrzej Duda, and once again provides the head of state in Karol Nawrocki since the summer of 2025. In the 2023 parliamentary election, the PiS had still garnered 35 percent of the vote. In current polls, it stands at only 23 percent, with some surveys putting it at as low as 17.7 percent. The split could push these figures down further.

Remarkably, both wings agree on one point: They emphasize that ultimately it is about defeating the liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, to which the PiS had to cede power after the 2023 elections. "Die PiS müsse wieder zu einem großen Lager der polnischen Rechten und der Mitte-Rechts-Parteien werden", demanded Morawiecki. The only question is whether, under the given circumstances, such a camp can still be assembled under one banner. The split follows a personal and programmatic break that was already inherent in the more recent past.

The PiS had so far formed the largest faction in the Sejm with 186 MPs. With the loss of more than 30 mandate holders, it could lose its status as the strongest force in the Polish lower house. At the same time, the break weakens the opposition at a phase in which it must prepare for the 2027 elections. Tusk, in turn, who is head of government, can no longer count on a clear majority in the next election, even though his coalition remains the strongest force with just under 31 percent. The split of the largest opposition party is therefore a double-edged sword for Tusk's Civic Coalition.

Losses in parliament

From the analysts' perspective, the conflict reveals a generational change on the Polish right. "Die PiS war ein Sonnensystem, in dem sich alle um Kaczynski drehten", analyzed the journalist Rafal Kalukin from the magazine "Polityka". "Einzelne Gruppen sind auf sich selbst fokussiert und warten auf den Moment, wo Kaczynski in die politische Geschichte Polens eingeht." Indeed, Morawiecki's resistance makes clear to many observers: The 77-year-old Kaczynski no longer has his party under control. In a time in which politicians react in the morning to trends on social media, no one pays attention to the party leader's instructions anymore.

Added to this is the rise of new right-wing conservative figures. The non-partisan Karol Nawrocki, a 47-year-old former boxer with fashionably short hair, won the 2025 presidential election and is meanwhile more popular among the young right than the aging Kaczynski or his protégés. In the right-wing extremist spectrum, the Konfederacja of the young entrepreneur Slawomir Mentzen (12.4 percent) and the formation of the antisemite Grzegorz Braun (9.6 percent) together garner almost as much as the PiS. "Zwischen den beiden gibt es kaum Programmunterschiede, sie unterscheiden sich eigentlich nur in der Sprache und im politischen Spiel", political scientist Danuta Plecka told the channel TVN.

Generational change on the right

For the Tusk government, however, the development could still hold opportunities. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski commented on the events with irony: "Ich liebe die PiS so sehr, dass ich gern zwei davon haben möchte." At the same time, he warned that the PiS would hopefully now come to the conclusion "dass der Wettstreit mit Rechtsradikalen in Sachen Nationalismus und antieuropäischer Haltung sie auf Abwege geführt habe". However, Tusk's coalition cannot afford to merely observe the development. "Tusk braucht nichts zu machen, er kann sich ans Flussufer setzen und warten, bis die Leichen vorbeischwimmen", said political scientist Danuta Plecka. The split of the PiS, the KO's most important political opponent for 25 years, is a problem for the governing coalition.

Morawiecki is already forging more concrete plans. For the end of July, he invited 1,000 guests from various political directions to a programmatic event. A poll by the institute Opinia24 for the channels TVN and TVN24 from Wednesday (22.07.2024) gave Morawiecki 6.2 percent of the vote right away. The rift could pave the way for a new party that bundles parts of the right and economically liberal spectrum. Observers see the prerequisites for this as given in any case. "Sie kann keine Volkspartei mehr sein, wie man sie früher nannte", said the political scientist. The PiS