Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party — the country’s main right-wing opposition force — announced on Friday it had effectively split, losing at least 30 of its MPs.

If the split is officially confirmed, PiS will lose its position as the largest party in parliament, falling behind Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition.

The row centres on internal divisions within the PiS over the current leadership’s drive to woo the extreme right in a bid to win next year’s parliamentary elections.  

The conservative PiS, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023, played a pivotal role in ensuring nationalist ally Karol Nawrocki was elected president.

But it does not appear capable of winning the 2027 parliamentary ballot without allying with far-right parties. 

Faced with its lowest opinion poll numbers in over a decade, the party has for months faced internal wrangling over whether or not to shift further towards more radical parties. 

To silence internal dissent, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski — himself of its further-right faction — gave party members an ultimatum of Thursday evening to sign a declaration of loyalty.

But dissenting MPs — who are allies of former PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki — rejected the demand.

“Around 30… MPs from our party have left,” Kaczynski told journalists on Friday. 

Morawiecki said the true number of rebel MPs was 40. 

The rebels alleged they had not resigned but been “expelled”.

– Moderates sidelined –

Before the announced split, the PiS boasted 186 seats in the lower house of parliament, 30 more than Tusk’s pro-European Union party with 156 seats. 

If the defections are officially confirmed, the PiS will be left neck and neck with Civic Coalition at best and could become smaller.

Tusk’s governing alliance, composed of three parties, remains the country’s most powerful political force, with 239 MPs.

Cracks in the PiS first showed when party leader Kaczynski named ultra-conservative Przemyslaw Czarnek as its next candidate for prime minister, sidelining the more moderate Morawiecki and his allies. 

Czarnek has already proposed local alliances with the small, extreme-right Confederation party. 

Morawiecki subsequently left the PiS to form a less extremist, economy-focused group.

Commenting on the split on Friday, Morawiecki said he hoped for “a return to reason” among the “conspiracists” within the PiS. 

“Today we have reached a moment when the outstretched hand for reconciliation, for unity, has been pushed away. We will now reflect on a strategy for the future,” he said.

According to an Opinia24 poll conducted on July 22, Tusk’s Civic Coalition would win the November 2027 parliamentary elections with 31 percent of the vote, ahead of the PiS on 17 percent and two far-right parties.

Under this scenario, neither of the two major parties would have a majority in parliament without outside alliances. 

sw/gab/ks/gil