Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has tapped the outgoing prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki of the Law and Justice party, to try to form the country’s next government.

President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda (R) and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (L). Photo by Marcin Obara/PAP

“After a calm analysis and consultations run, I decided to entrust the mission of forming a government to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. With that, I decided to continue the good parliamentary tradition according to which it is the winning party that first gets the chance to form a government,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a televised national address on Monday evening.

The ruling Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - PiS) won the October 15 general election, but failed to retain their parliamentary majority. PiS is still the largest party though, taking 194 seats in the 460-member lower house of parliament

Consequently, three primary opposition factions, comprising the liberal Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska - KO), the center-right Third Way alliance, and the New Left, have jointly approached President Duda, requesting his approval to establish a coalition government with Donald Tusk (the head of KO), who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2014. The three oposition parties together control 248 parliamentary seats.

Mateusz Morawiecki is required to present his cabinet to President Andrzej Duda within two weeks of the new parliament being convened on November 13. Following this, he has an additional two weeks to present his government's program and undergo a confidence vote. Should he not succeed in securing confidence, the parliament assumes the responsibility of proposing its own candidate.

Polish president has the power to veto legislation, and it takes three-fifths of the parliament (276 votes), to override.

(J)