The Sejm held a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government, with 243 MPs voting in favor and 210 against; no one abstained.
All 182 PiS MPs present were against, with seven not attending the vote, including opposition Law and Justice (PiS) head Jarosław Kaczyński, who said his meeting with President-elect Karol Nawrocki ran over.
Tusk called for the vote after his preferred candidate for president, Rafał Trzaskowski, lost the second round of elections to Nawrocki. During his speech before the vote, the prime minister focused on the opposition, as well as his own cabinet.
“I am asking this High House to grant a vote of confidence in our government for quite obvious reasons. The political calendar, very dynamic, has clearly shown the challenges facing the ruling coalition. We cannot close our eyes to reality. These challenges are greater than we expected, in connection with the presidential elections,” Tusk said, as quoted by Do Rzeczy.
“There is no earthquake, but let’s call a spade a spade: We are facing 2.5 years of very hard, serious work in conditions that will not change for the better, I am talking about political conditions. A president who is reluctant to the changes we proposed to Poland and our voters will be replaced in August by a president who is at least as reluctant to these changes and proposals,” he emphasized.
Third Way MP Aleksandra Leo commented on Donald Tusk’s speech on RMF FM radio.
“I have heard better speeches than Donald Tusk’s exposé. We have a majority. This is pure parliamentary mathematics. For me, much more important than just showing this strength, but also the unity of the coalition, was this new beginning, this program reset,” she said after the vote.
According to Do Rzeczy, Tusk gave an hour-long speech, and as many as 267 MPs asked questions for several hours, with each given one minute to ask a question. Topics addressed included the economy, security, immigration, foreign policy, healthcare, debt, deregulation, agriculture, education, justice, and local governments.
Referring to Donald Tusk’s responses to some of the MPs’ questions, Leo noted that it was good to hear Tusk address many of the reforms that had been in the works. “I missed this openness, these ideas that we are talking about and that the leaders are talking about,” she said.
“Before today, there were two meetings of the leaders. We went to these meetings with our five postulates, things that are important to us now, to implement as soon as possible. These are things that should have been implemented a long time ago, but they were not,” Leo said, adding that she was happy to hear Tusk mention three of their five postulates.
Tusk reportedly did not listen to everyone from his seat on the government bench, leaving the plenary chamber after the first break. This resulted in the vast majority of PiS politicians boycotting his speech.
The Third Way MP admitted that the prime minister’s speech contained “too many attacks on PiS.”
“We are really not exclusively anti-PiS. That is not the point and we are not here to only score points and bash PiS,” she said.
Commenting on Rafał Trzaskowski’s defeat in the presidential elections, Nawrocki’s victory is a yellow card for the government.
“The [Civic Coalition] candidate lost for many reasons. Many of our proposals were not implemented due to coalition disputes and the difficult budget situation that we found ourselves in after eight years of PiS rule.”
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