According to press reports, Tusk will stand down as Civic Platform chief at the party convention next spring, when he will officially announce that he is running for the presidency.

He will not resign from the post of prime minister, however, until

 he gains enough votes to take part in the second presidential ballot in autumn next year.

“At the party congress we will elect candidates for president and chairman of the party,” a Civic Platform insider told the Dziennik newspaper.

Tusk’s resignation as leader of Civic Platform will result heated competition for the post. Main candidates for the post include deputy-PM Grzegorz Schetyna, speaker of the lower house of parliament Bronislaw Komorowski and even high-profile maverick MP Janusz Palikot. 

In resigning from the post as head of a political party, Tusk will follow in the footsteps of both current president Lech Kaczynski and former president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who both stood down from Law and Justice and Democratic Left Alliance parties respectively. (kk/pg)