Kaczyński condemns “betrayal” after PiS loses control of regional assembly following rebellion

Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, has been hit by rebellions in its ranks in two regional assemblies, one of which it has lost control of as a result.

Party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has condemned the actions of some local PiS politicians as a “betrayal” and has sacked the head of the party’s regional structures in one of the provinces.

Zdrada, takie rzeczy się zdarzają -mówi prezes @pisorgpl pytany o utratę władzy w sejmiku podlaskim.
Czy będą konsekwencje za to, co wydarzyło się w sejmiku @malopolskaPL ?
-Zobaczymy- odpowiada prezes Kaczyński.@OnetWiadomosci pic.twitter.com/kstaIVWMaO

— Monika Waluś (@MW_reporterka) May 8, 2024

The crisis comes as part of the aftermath of last month’s local elections, when delegates were chosen for regional assemblies (known as sejmiki in Polish) in each of Poland’s 16 provinces.

Those bodies have powers over deciding and distributing provincial budgets, as well as in other areas such as spatial planning, rail services and waste and water management.

At the elections, PiS won half of the seats in the regional assembly in Podlasie province, and the party had hoped it would therefore retain control of the chamber. However, this week that turned out not to be the case after two PiS assembly members rebelled in votes on two key positions.

Wiesława Burnos and Marek Malinowski of PiS voted for Łukasz Prokorym of Civic Coalition (KO) for the seat of provincial marshal, who heads the provincial executive board, and for Cezary Cieślukowski from the Third Way (Trzecia Droga) to be head of the provincial assembly itself.

PiS exceeded expectations in last month’s Polish local elections while Donald Tusk was left disappointed with his group’s result.

However, the results showed that little has changed since last October’s parliamentary election, writes @AleksSzczerbiak https://t.co/vmc6hyPNTZ

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 7, 2024

KO and Third Way are part of the broadly centrist coalition that rules Poland nationally, and to which the national-conservative PiS is bitterly opposed. As a result of Burnos and Malinowski’s decisions, Prokorym and Cieślukowski won both those votes and the governing coalition now holds power in Podlasie.

Burnos and Malinowski have been rewarded by being named deputy marshals of the province. But their decision unsurprisingly caused outrage among senior PiS figures.

Jacek Sasin, a former deputy prime minister in the PiS government that ruled nationally until last year, accused the pair of “betraying voters in return for jobs”. Kaczyński likewise told reporters that the pair had “betrayed” the party but added that “these things happen” in politics.

The result means that the nationally ruling coalition has gained control of six of the 16 provincial assemblies (Mazovia, Opole, Podlasie, Pomerania, Silesia and West Pomerania) while PiS has done so in three (Lublin, Subcarpathia and Świętokrzyskie).

To oni zdradzili za stołki swoich wyborców. Wbrew ich woli oddali Podlaskie w ręce koalicji 13 grudnia. Zdrada ma krótkie nogi. Przekonają się o tym szybciej niż im się wydaje. pic.twitter.com/7gEd89KyYf

— Jacek Sasin (@SasinJacek) May 7, 2024

The heads of regional assemblies have not yet been chosen in the other seven provinces. However, this week also saw a rebellion within PiS’s ranks in one of those provinces, Małopolska, where the party won a majority of 21 of the 39 seats at last month’s elections

Despite that advantage, the chamber on Monday failed to elect a provincial marshall. In a secret ballot, the PiS candidate, Łukasz Kmita, reportedly chosen for the job by Kaczyński himself, received only 13 of the 20 votes he needed to win while 22 members voted against him.

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Kmita – who was the only candidate – lost the vote because PiS’s local structures in Małopolska are deeply divided. The councillors, moreover, were reportedly unhappy that the candidate for marshal was not from their own ranks but is instead a member of the national parliament.

In response to the vote, the party authorities announced that Kaczyński had decided to sack the head of the local party structures in Małopolska and replace him with Kmita.

Zmiany w strukturach @pisorgpl w Małopolsce. Prezentujemy decyzję prezesa PiS Jarosława Kaczyńskiego. pic.twitter.com/vz1Ylz0EjF

— PiS w Krakowie (@PiS_Krakow) May 8, 2024

When asked about the situation in Małopolska, Kaczyński said that “it is a matter of there being some differences of opinion”, reported news website Wirtualna Polska. “Sometimes new people, those who are…let’s say from the higher end in an intellectual sense, don’t appeal to some people.”

In further local discord, PiS on Monday expelled three local politicians in the northern town of Wejherowo who entered into an agreement with KO to elect district authorities.

“Witold Reclaf, Krzysztof Bober and Marcin Drewa have violated elementary principles of functioning in public life,” read a statement signed by senior party figures Piotr Müller, Marcin Horała and Kazimierz Smoliński. “This contradicts the ideals we represent as Law and Justice.”

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Main image credit: Agnieszka Sadowska/ Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.