Poland's PiS says MPs have left amid dispute over far-right alliance

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

The conservative opposition party now risks losing its position as the largest opposition force to Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Coalition. PiS currently has 186 seats in the lower house, compared with 156 for Tusk's pro-European Union party. The governing coalition built around Tusk's grouping has 239 MPs.

The split follows months of internal disagreement over whether PiS should move further right and seek alliances with more radical parties before the 2027 parliamentary elections. The party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023, helped nationalist Karol Nawrocki win the presidency, but the source reported that it does not appear able to win the next parliamentary election without a coalition with far-right parties.

PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, described in the source as part of the party's further-right faction, had given members until Thursday evening to sign a loyalty declaration. Dissenting MPs led by former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki rejected the demand.

Kaczynski told journalists that around 30 MPs had left. Morawiecki said the real number was 40. The rebel MPs said they had not resigned but had been expelled.

Morawiecki recently left PiS to form a more liberal, economy-focused group, opposing efforts by current party leaders to court the far right. Divisions also widened after Kaczynski named ultra-conservative Przemyslaw Czarnek as the party's next candidate for prime minister, sidelining Morawiecki and his allies. Czarnek has proposed local alliances with the far-right Confederation party.

An Opinia24 poll conducted on July 22 said Tusk's Civic Coalition would win the November 2027 parliamentary elections with 31 percent of the vote, ahead of PiS on 17 percent and two far-right parties. Under that scenario, neither of Poland's two main parties would have a parliamentary majority without outside alliances.