WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki aims to convince opposition party members who are like-minded on key issues to form a coalition government following the October elections, he told news website Interia.pl in an interview published on Saturday.
“I’m not packed,” he was quoted as saying. “I want to appeal to those MPs from the Third Way, Confederation and other clubs who care about the social and sovereignty programs and the issue of fighting illegal migration.”
Morawiecki’s Law and Justice (PiS) party came first in the October parliamentary elections with 194 seats but fell far short of a majority in the 460-seat lower house (Sejm).
Three pro-European opposition parties – Civic Coalition (KO), Third Way and the Left – which jointly won 248 mandates, say they are ready to form a cabinet led by opposition leader Donald Tusk and have urged President Andrzej Duda not to delay his appointment.
“The opposition is trying to find an agreement – I see it, I take note of it and I know how to count. But perhaps if we present the risks and opportunities, we will gain the support of new MPs,” Morawiecki told Interia.
“Poles decided that we had achieved the highest result. At the same time, they said: this time you have to look for a coalition partner. We are obliged to make such an attempt.”
When asked if he could see himself in a government run by Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, the head of the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL), Morawiecki said he could.
Kosiniak-Kamysz has previously denied the possibility of forming a coalition with PiS.
PSL together with the centrist Poland 2050 won 65 seats under their joint Third Way banner.
The last party to clear the parliamentary threshold, the far-right Confederation party, which secured 18 seats, has said it would join neither a PiS- nor a KO-led government.
(Reporting by Karol Badohal; editing by Jason Neely)
