Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of the Civic Platform (PO), the country’s largest opposition party, said at a campaign rally that Kidawa-Błońska was a natural choice for head of government because she was a senior parliamentarian, “a successful woman and mother,” and a person who knew how to establish a good rapport with people from different backgrounds.
"Why didn’t we come up with this idea earlier?” Schetyna said. “It's so obvious."
He also said that Kidawa-Błońska, who comes from Warsaw, "knows about life and knows what Polish families need” and that she has proved herself in her role as deputy Speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, and also when she led the house briefly from June to November 2015.
"She always works to find consensus for the good of Polish people, which may be because of her genes,” Schetyna said, adding that one of Kidawa-Błońska’s great-grandfathers, Stanisław Wojciechowski, was a former Polish president, and another, Władysław Grabski, was prime minister in the 1920s.
“Neither of them worked for any single party, but for Poland as a whole, just like Małgorzata," Schetyna said.
Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska and Grzegorz Schetyna in Warsaw on Tuesday. Photo: PAP/Piotr Nowak
Poles will vote in parliamentary elections on October 13.
After four years in power, Poland’s governing Law and Justice (PiS) party is bidding for a second term following a landslide win over Schetyna's Civic Platform in 2015.
As election day approaches, the country's ruling conservatives are ahead in the opinion polls, while the opposition is divided into three separate camps.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a media interview last month that his ruling conservatives had yet to decide who would head the government if they won October’s vote.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP