"Over 30 delegates of our group have effectively forfeited their membership," Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, said on Friday. He's accusing Poland's former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, as well as dozens of his followers, of attempting to split the party.
"We couldn't accept that," Kaczynski continued. "It's all done." For their part, the rebels alleged they have not resigned but been "expelled."
A three-hour "last chance" talk between Kaczynski and Morawiecki ended on Thursday without results. "We were looking for understanding, but couldn't accept subjugation," Piotr Mueller, an EU delegate close to Morawiecki, later said about the talks on X.
The ultimatum that Kacynski had placed on rebel party members ended at midnight. By then, they were expected to deliver a written declaration that they would refrain from activities in the Rozwoj Plus (Development Plus) association led by Morawiecki. In Kaczynski's view, the breakaway association has undermined his party's primacy.
"I'm not signing any loyalty pledge," Morawiecki told the Polish television station TVN. "That's something one might have required of me in the 1980s," he added, alluding to his persecution for his father's prominent opposition to the regime at the time.
