Morawiecki confirms new party by 15 October as PiS support slides to 16.9% in first post-split poll

Party announcement

Mateusz Morawiecki confirmed on Monday that his Rozwój Plus association will become a political party, with a founding convention set for 15 October, the second anniversary of the 2023 parliamentary election. Speaking on the YouTube channel Rymanowski Live, he said the membership of the 40 MPs and one senator who formed the breakaway parliamentary club was now "dead" inside Law and Justice. Earlier that day PiS disciplinary spokesman Karol Karski had stated that the cases of those parliamentarians would be examined individually but their party membership could not be maintained.

Now that our membership is dead, meaning we have been completely removed from Law and Justice, I can say that we will indeed form such a party. By 15 October at the latest, yes, I can confirm that.

Morawiecki argued that Karski's words proved the PiS leadership had wanted to push his group out from the start. He said his camp had fought for unity until the end and had not even begun its political journey because it lacked a party structure.

Poll fallout

A new IBRiS survey for Polsat News, published the same day, showed PiS support at 16.9 percent, down 7.2 percentage points from the last poll before the split. Rozwój Plus registered 7.8 percent, enough to enter the Sejm. The full results placed Civic Coalition at 27.5 percent, Confederation at 14.4 percent, Confederation of the Polish Crown at 9.4 percent, and the Left at 7.6 percent.

PiS spokesman Rafał Bochenek dismissed the numbers as a "game with surveys" designed to justify a harmful split and to give false hope to the breakaway faction. He warned that at 7.8 percent the vast majority of Rozwój Plus members currently sitting in the Sejm would not return as MPs and accused them of committing "political seppuku". Rozwój Plus MP Sylwester Tułajew shot back that voters would decide who enters the next parliament and told critics to hold off on "writing obituaries".

A game with surveys has begun, aimed at justifying the harmful split and pouring hope into the frightened souls of the splitters... unfortunately false hope.

Potential allies

Paweł Kukiz, the leader of the Direct Democracy circle, may join Rozwój Plus once he recovers from injuries sustained in a fall from a ladder while picking cherries, according to anonymous sources cited by Newsweek. Kukiz reportedly wants the group to adopt his flagship demands: single-member electoral constituencies and a strengthened role for referendums. Two former Kukiz'15 MPs, Marek Jakubiak and Agnieszka Ścigaj, are already members of the Rozwój Plus club.

Rumours also surround Adam Andruszkiewicz, the deputy head of President Karol Nawrocki's chancellery, who may leave PiS for the new formation. At a recent Rozwój Plus barbecue event, attendees included Janina Goss, a former PiS member and longtime acquaintance of Jarosław Kaczyński who left the party in June over unpaid membership fees, and Marcin Józefaciuk, a former Civic Coalition MP who has become a critic of the education ministry.

The wider split

Morawiecki used the interview to accuse people from the Sovereign Poland milieu of trying to torpedo Karol Nawrocki's presidential candidacy. He said PiS had mistakenly treated Nawrocki's election victory as its own, and that the party's poll decline began right after that win. He also claimed a faction inside PiS was working to push out Jarosław Kaczyński, who had previously promised to resign after an electoral defeat, in order to take control of the party and its finances.

Morawiecki said he was not attaching importance to current polls, though he noted the trend for Rozwój Plus was upward. The convention on 15 October, he wrote on X, would show that "Poland is not condemned to chaos, mediocrity and broken promises" and that there exists a force with the experience, courage and programme to take responsibility for the country again.