The party’s senior leadership unanimously approved a resolution on Wednesday requiring members to withdraw within seven days from associations, foundations and other organizations engaged in political activity. Those who refuse may face expulsion.
Party spokesman Rafał Bochenek said the measure was intended to preserve the party’s ideological, organizational and political unity.
He identified two organizations affected by the resolution: Development Plus, founded by Morawiecki in April, and Poland First, established in June by PiS lawmaker Jacek Sasin.
“Members of Law and Justice who belong to such organizations should immediately cease their activities in them and leave those organizations within seven days,” Bochenek said after a meeting of the party’s leadership.
Morawiecki did not attend the meeting.
PiS, a national-conservative party led by Jarosław Kaczyński, governed Poland from 2015 to 2023 and is now the country’s largest opposition party. The new associations have exposed competition within its senior ranks over leadership, policy and the party’s future direction.
Sasin complied with the decision, announcing that Poland First had ended its activities. He said the main task facing PiS politicians was to remove Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government from power.
Morawiecki took a different position. In a post on X, he said Development Plus had become a forum for Poles seeking serious discussion about economic growth, security and the country’s future.
“Poles today expect serious answers to the most important challenges: demographics, the collapse of public finances, security, housing, energy prices, the future of the Polish economy and Poland’s place in the world,” he wrote.
Morawiecki said voters did not need "more shallow slogans, sterile disputes and politics based solely on attacking one another."
"We have a unique opportunity to build the great Poland that generations dreamed of," he added. "That is and will remain the aim of Development Plus."
The statement did not say whether Morawiecki himself would leave the association.
Several members linked to his group told Poland's PAP news agency that they intended to remain and proceed with a July 31 event featuring 20 debates and panel discussions and 50 speakers and guests.
"We are staying in the association and holding the festival on July 31. I cannot imagine any other decision,"one PiS politician aligned with Morawiecki said.
Bochenek later accused Development Plus members of overlooking the main reason for the resolution.
He said their planned activities could deprive PiS of financing needed to win the next election, although he did not explain how this might happen.
"Let us not make Tusk's victory easier," he wrote.
Development Plus has caused tension within PiS since its creation. Some senior party figures have viewed it as an attempt by Morawiecki, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023, to build a separate center of influence.
Mateusz Morawiecki and Jarosław Kaczyński. Photos: Agnieszka Bielecka/Tomasz Gzell/PAP
Sasin presented Poland First as an organization intended to strengthen party unity and support Przemysław Czarnek, whom PiS named in March as its preferred candidate to lead a future government.
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Source: IAR, PAP