“I believe that a stable system is better, that is, one Prime Minister and one chairman of the Sejm, and this chairman should be Szymon Hołownia until the end of the term. However, because we have a four-party coalition, there are discussions on this topic. This happens in other European countries; recently the Prime Minister was changed in Romania as part of the rotation. I am not particularly in favor of such solutions, but it does not depend on me, but on the decisions of the four party leaders,” said Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, PSL MP, in an interview with wPolityce.pl.
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wPolityce.pl: Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki admitted in an interview with the Interia portal that he could imagine a situation where he would be in the government of Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. What do you say?
Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski: Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz will not become prime minister and will not include Mateusz Morawiecki in the government. These are fantasies. The coalition agreements mean that Donald Tusk will become prime minister.
But even if Donald Tusk’s government were formed now, this could change in the future and there could be some turnover during the term.
This is unbelievable. Once this government is formed, it will continue to exist until the end of its term.
What do you think of the idea of introducing a rotating Speaker of the Sejm? Now Szymon Hołownia mentions that not only the chairman of the Sejm, but also the chairman of the Senate could be rotated, and that this would even apply to some government positions. Perhaps it will eventually turn out that the prime minister can also be rotated?
I believe that a stable system is better, that is, one Prime Minister and one chairman of the Sejm, and this chairman should be Szymon Hołownia until the end of the term. However, because we have a four-party coalition, there are discussions on this topic. This happens in other European countries; recently the Prime Minister was changed in Romania as part of the rotation. I am not particularly in favor of such solutions, but it does not depend on me, but on the decisions of the four party leaders.
However, you mentioned a rotating Prime Minister. When the Romanian variant is introduced in Poland, Donald Tusk would be head of government for half the term, and Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz would be head of government for the other half. Maybe something like this is worth implementing?
No, I believe that by the end of the term there should be one Prime Minister and one Speaker of the Sejm. These are rotating ministers because the prime minister can change ministers at any time.
That’s right, but the new governing coalition can also agree that, for example, the Minister of National Defense will change every year, which, by the way, according to reports from “Gazeta Wyborcza” will be Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
This would cause great instability. I believe that the fewer innovations like this, the better. It seems some of my colleagues feel the same way; they even talk about it publicly, but it is all the result of negotiations between the four parties. When there were two parties in the ruling coalition, which was normal in most parliamentary terms, one party had the chairman of the Sejm and the other the prime minister – the division was more or less based on this principle. When there are four leaders, it’s always a bigger problem.
That’s right, PiS already hinted at this in the election campaign and called the countries a ‘coalition of chaos’, naming no fewer than eight parties that form KO, Third Way and Left.
Not every party has the same impact on the ability to govern. So what if there are 2-3 people in a party? Most are obvious. This opposition majority is held by the PO MPs, then Poland 2050 and then the PSL.
Andrzej Domański, MP of the aforementioned PO, said that the coalition agreement should include provisions on ideological issues. How does this compare to PSL President Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz’s announcement a few weeks ago that he would not agree to provisions on ideological issues in the coalition agreement?
In my opinion, there will be no provisions on this in the coalition agreement, but we will have to wait until next week, after which the agreement will probably be announced publicly. I don’t know this contract, I haven’t negotiated it. The PSL’s position on ideological issues is clear and has been repeated many times.
I also refer to the Prime Minister’s interview for Interia. He referred to PSL more broadly, mentioning that PiS’s main opponent was and is KO, and that PiS did not crack down on PSL in the last campaign. Are you considering the possibility of collaboration between PSL and PiS in the future?
PiS has been attacking us for eight years. In the period 2015-2019, well-known PiS politicians openly said that PSL should be eliminated from political life. During the last term of office, there were no gestures from PiS towards PSL, our projects ended up in the parliamentary “freezer”, nothing could be negotiated. Even some of the more reasonable PiS politicians pointed this out and said that if it continues to function like this, there will no longer be any chance of cooperation between PiS and PSL. During the campaign itself we were also attacked by leading PiS politicians. Therefore, as PiS wanted, this is what it has: there is no chance for us to work with them. Especially because we went to the elections under the motto: either the Third Way, or a third term for PiS. More than 3.1 million voters voted for the Third Way and we will not disappoint them by entering into a coalition with PiS.
Yes, you are talking about the current situation, but I am asking about possible variants of possible cooperation in the future. Currently, PiS is changing its rhetoric regarding PSL.
During the past parliamentary term, PiS has had several opportunities to enter into a dialogue with us. They didn’t want this dialogue, they thought we weren’t needed – even though some PiS members thought otherwise. However, their position did not receive support among the party leadership. We were treated very poorly, there was no dialogue and no concessions were made to us. Since this was not the case and we have now won the elections, PiS cannot suddenly expect us to shake his hand.
Meanwhile, local elections are just around the corner. Political similarities are not so obvious there and may look different in individual regions.
PiS will be defeated in the local elections because PiS decided to hold local elections after the parliamentary elections, which PiS hoped to win. Currently, PiS has lost the parliamentary elections and will also – decisively – lose the local government elections.
On the other hand, in this situation PiS is probably counting on the fact that by the time of the local elections the country will have managed to discredit itself as a ruling coalition, for example by withdrawing from its election promises or by starting new disputes within the coalition.
Let PiS count on this, and we will count on ourselves and we are determined to achieve a very good result in the local elections.
Source: wPolityce