Jarosław Kaczyński says more than 30 MPs have effectively left Law and Justice after refusing a party declaration. Mateusz Morawiecki’s supporters insist they did not resign, leaving the future of Poland’s largest opposition group unsettled.
Poland’s Law and Justice party has entered its most serious internal confrontation since losing power in 2023, after leader Jarosław Kaczyński declared that more than 30 MPs had effectively resigned by refusing to sign a declaration demanded by the party leadership.
The dispute centres on Development Plus, an association established by former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki. PiS members were given until midnight on Thursday, 23 July, to declare that they did not belong to organisations conducting separate political activity. Those who refused were warned that they could no longer remain in the party.
Kaczyński said on Friday that “thirty-some” MPs had resigned from PiS by declining to submit the declaration. He said the party’s Political Committee would meet on Tuesday, 28 July, to acknowledge the outcome formally.
The PiS leader argued that Development Plus had become part of an attempt to divide the party. He said the leadership had offered to abandon its original demand that the association be dissolved and had instead proposed freezing its political activity until the parliamentary election.
Morawiecki rejected that interpretation. He refused to sign what he called a loyalty pledge, saying he had presented Kaczyński with a 21-point compromise. One proposal would have involved his resignation as a PiS deputy leader while allowing him to remain an ordinary party member and concentrate on attracting new voters.
After the deadline passed, Morawiecki said his association included 40 MPs, one senator and three members of the European Parliament. He maintained that his supporters had sought to preserve the unity of the PiS political camp and had been following a previously agreed “two lungs” strategy intended to reach different parts of the conservative electorate.
Morawiecki has not yet announced the formation of a new party or parliamentary group. Asked about the possibility, he said future plans would have to be discussed. His supporters had not prepared a new parliamentary structure because they had continued to expect an agreement with Kaczyński, he added. The group nevertheless plans to begin a national tour and has scheduled a policy conference in Warsaw on 31 July.
The immediate parliamentary consequences therefore remain uncertain. Before the dispute, the official Sejm voting records listed PiS with 186 MPs and Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition with 156. A departure of more than 30 MPs would reduce PiS below Civic Coalition and cost it its position as the largest single group in the lower house.
The split would not bring down Tusk’s government because it has occurred within the opposition. Its importance lies instead in the electoral competition before the parliamentary election scheduled for 2027.
PiS is already under pressure from both Civic Coalition and parties competing for the conservative and nationalist vote. A CBOS survey conducted between 6 and 8 July put Civic Coalition on 25.1 per cent and PiS on 19.1 per cent. Confederation stood at 15.2 per cent, while the Confederation of the Polish Crown received 8.2 per cent.
Those figures pre-date the confrontation and cannot measure its effect. They do, however, show why control of the conservative electorate has become central to the dispute. Kaczyński’s camp must prevent voters moving to parties further to the right, while Morawiecki is attempting to appeal to business-oriented and more moderate voters who may no longer identify with the existing PiS leadership.
A separate Morawiecki organisation could therefore divide the PiS electorate, but it could also expand the combined vote of Poland’s conservative parties. The outcome would depend on whether the new formation crossed the electoral threshold and whether the parties could co-operate after the election. Poland’s proportional system means that votes cast for a party that fails to enter parliament are excluded from the allocation of seats.
The dispute also has implications for Poland’s relations with the European Union and Ukraine. Morawiecki’s supporters describe their project largely in terms of economic growth, state capacity and attracting new constituencies. Other parts of PiS have placed greater emphasis on sovereignty disputes with Brussels, migration, climate policy and historical disagreements with Kyiv.
The departure of Morawiecki’s group could consequently narrow the range of positions represented inside PiS. That would not alter the Polish government’s current European or Ukrainian policy, but it could affect the language and policy choices offered by the opposition during the 2027 campaign.
The next test will be Tuesday’s Political Committee meeting. It should establish whether the MPs are formally removed from PiS, whether they remain in its parliamentary group and whether Morawiecki proceeds towards creating a separate political party. Until those questions are settled, Poland has a political rupture but not yet a fully defined realignment.
