Poland's PiS risks losing top opposition status after MPs split

Poland's Law and Justice party, known as PiS, said on Friday that it had effectively split after losing at least 30 members of parliament.

If the split is officially confirmed, PiS would lose its position as the largest party in parliament and fall behind Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Coalition.

The dispute centres on divisions inside PiS over the leadership's effort to move closer to the extreme right ahead of the next parliamentary election. PiS, a conservative party that governed Poland from 2015 to 2023, helped nationalist ally Karol Nawrocki win the presidency. The party does not appear able to win the 2027 parliamentary election without alliances with far-right parties.

PiS has faced its weakest polling in more than a decade and months of internal disagreement over whether to shift further toward more radical parties. Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is part of the party's further-right faction, gave members until Thursday evening to sign a loyalty declaration. MPs allied with former PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki rejected the demand.

Kaczynski told journalists on Friday that around 30 MPs had left the party. Morawiecki said the real number was 40. The rebels said they had not resigned and had instead been expelled.

Before the announced split, PiS had 186 seats in the lower house of parliament, 30 more than Civic Coalition's 156 seats. If the defections are confirmed, PiS would at best be level with Civic Coalition and could become smaller. Tusk's governing alliance, made up of three parties, remains the strongest parliamentary force with 239 MPs.

The split followed signs of internal tension after Kaczynski named ultra-conservative Przemyslaw Czarnek as the party's next candidate for prime minister, sidelining the more moderate Morawiecki and his allies. Czarnek has proposed local alliances with the small, extreme-right Confederation party. Morawiecki later left PiS to form a less extremist, economy-focused group.

Morawiecki said on Friday that he hoped for what he called a return to reason among the conspiracists inside PiS. He said an offer of reconciliation and unity had been rejected and that his side would now consider its future strategy.

According to an Opinia24 poll conducted on July 22, Civic Coalition would win the November 2027 parliamentary election with 31 percent of the vote, followed by PiS on 17 percent and two far-right parties. Under that scenario, neither of the two largest parties would have a parliamentary majority without outside alliances.