{"id":18322,"date":"2026-07-24T14:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/18322\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T14:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:42:13","slug":"polands-biggest-opposition-party-faces-split-over-tensions-about-its-direction-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/18322\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland&#8217;s biggest opposition party faces split over tensions about its direction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"jxTEW Poyse ouIFx uieav lqtkC HkWF HfYhe kGyAC \">Poland&#8217;s main opposition party, Law and Justice, faces a split in a disagreement over its future direction<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">WARSAW, Poland &#8212; Poland&#8217;s main opposition party faces a split in a disagreement over its future direction, with the party leader saying Friday that more than 30 lawmakers have effectively left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The conservative nationalist Law and Justice party ran Poland from 2015 to 2023, when the current liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk took power. During that time, it <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/eu-poland-rule-of-law-conflict-c439762983d197484af65ccc356a323c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tightened control over the courts<\/a> by appointing loyalist judges to higher courts and punishing critics with disciplinary action. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Tusk government&#8217;s efforts to reverse those changes have <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/poland-judicial-independence-democracy-tusk-law-justice-2634a3045e09b2cf77b495c1eed54fb5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">repeatedly been blocked<\/a> by two successive presidents sympathetic to Law and Justice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Still, tensions within Law and Justice have simmered as a national election next year approaches, and it faces a challenge from parties further to its right. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Longtime leader Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski and Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland&#8217;s prime minister from 2017 to 2023, have been at the center of the spat. Morawiecki represents a relatively moderate faction and in April set up an association called Development Plus, which many in the party view with suspicion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A deadline for lawmakers to commit not to be members of other political associations expired Thursday night. A meeting Thursday between Kaczy\u0144ski and Morawiecki failed to resolve their differences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">On Friday, Kaczy\u0144ski said that, as a result, more than 30 lawmakers had resigned from their membership of the party, Polish news agency PAP reported. He said the party&#8217;s political committee will meet on Tuesday to acknowledge that. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Piotr M\u00fcller, a European Parliament lawmaker for Law and Justice and Morawiecki supporter, contradicted the party leadership. He wrote on X that no party members who were in Development Plus had actually resigned from Law and Justice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Morawiecki said Friday that he and other members of his association haven\u2019t yet discussed the formation of any new party, and said that \u201cwe have to discuss all plans for the future,\u201d PAP reported. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Law and Justice has 186 seats in the 460-seat Sejm, the lower house of parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poland&#8217;s main opposition party, Law and Justice, faces a split in a disagreement over its future direction WARSAW,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[732,362,329,9,122,331],"class_list":["post-18322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-conservatism","tag-elections","tag-general-news","tag-poland","tag-politics","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}