Poland to start talks on new government

WARSAW: Poland’s President Andrzej Duda will next week start talks with party leaders to form the country´s next government after the pro-EU opposition came out on top in last weekend’s elections.

Duda will meet on Tuesday with members of the populist Law and Justice party (PiS), to whom he is close, and with members of the opposition alliance on the same day.

Although the PiS came first in the elections, it will only have 194 seats in parliament of 460 deputies and is not thought capable of forming a ruling coalition.

For the opposition, Civic Platform, led by former president of the European Council Donald Tusk, and its two potential allies, the Third Way and New Left obtained 248 seats in parliament.

The law requires that he convene the first meeting of the new parliament within a maximum of 30 days from the election result, and assign someone the role of forming a new government.

Polish law does not specify who that person must be. Analysts think Duda will initially task a member of the PiS with forming a government, even if that seems impossible. If they cannot manage it, parliament will decide the future prime minister, which would likely be Tusk, say analysts. He previously served as prime minister between 2007 and 2014.