Andrzej Duda hosted politicians from various parties at the presidential palace in Warsaw on Tuesday and Wednesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
On Wednesday, the president met with politicians from the centre-right Third Way alliance, the New Left and the far-right Confederation group, according to officials.
Presidential aide Grażyna Ignaczak-Bandych said the talks had been “good-natured,” with the president declaring his readiness to “cooperate on issues that matter the most to Poland.”
The hour-long discussions with the Third Way focused on security, energy policy and "Poland’s standing on the international scene," according to the alliance’s co-leader Szymon Hołownia.
Hołownia added that the president “has not yet decided” on who to task with forming a new government, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Włodzimierz Czarzasty, one of the leaders of the New Left, said his group had told the president that the mission to form a new government should be entrusted to Donald Tusk, the leader of the biggest opposition grouping, the liberal Civic Coalition, according to the IAR news agency.
He added that the New Left, the Civic Coalition and the Third Way were ready to form "a coalition government with a strong majority.”
Czarzasty said the president would "likely name Tusk as a candidate for prime minister,” the PAP news agency reported.
Meanwhile, another leading leftist politician, Robert Biedroń, told reporters that the three opposition groups aimed to form a coalition government, with Tusk as their candidate for prime minister.
“The ball is now in the president’s court,” Biedroń said, as cited by the PAP news agency.
Duda on Wednesday also held talks with the far-right Confederation group.
Krzysztof Bosak, one of the party's leaders, wrote on the X social media platform that the 1.5-hour talks showed his group would play an important role in the new parliament despite choosing to remain in opposition.
On Tuesday, Duda held talks with the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party and Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition bloc.
The president will now brief the public on these two days of consultations on the formation of a new government, the PAP news agency reported.
The President's Office's Ignaczak-Bandych wrote on the X platform on Wednesday afternoon: “Tomorrow at noon the president will summarise the progress of the consultations.”
Duda, an ally of the outgoing Law and Justice government, has previously said he would give the first shot at assembling a new coalition to the largest single party in the parliament, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Law and Justice party won the October 15 election but is unlikely to find a partner with enough seats to form a coalition government, according to Reuters.
The leaders of the three groups intent on forming the next government - Tusk's liberal Civic Coalition (KO), the centre-right Third Way and the New Left - have all ruled out working with PiS and have urged Duda not to delay in giving Tusk the job of forming a government, Reuters reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, Reuters