Kluzik-Rostkowska; photo - PAP

A new opinion poll suggests that if Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, kicked out of the Law and Justice (PiS) party last Friday, formed her own party then a third of voters say they would vote her.

The findings by Gfk Polonia pollsters could make worrying reading for the Law and Justice party. Thirty three percent said that they would vote for a party formed by the now ex-Law and Justice members Kluzik-Rostkowska and Elzbieta Jakubiak, with 43 percent saying they would never vote for it and 22 percent undecided.

The poll suggests that the new party would take votes from both Law and Justice and the ruling centre-right Civic Platform.

According to Jakubiak, also thrown out of the party last week, there are around 12 or so MPs in parliament that support the more moderate stance that she and Kluzik-Rostkowska have argued for since the presidential elections in the summer, which leader of the party Jaroslaw Kaczynski lost to Bronislaw Komorowski.

She has also claimed that around 600 activists around the country could be tempted to join a new party, which the media have called PiS-lite.

According to the Rzeczpospolita daily, which commissioned the Gfk Polonia survey, party members may be waiting till December or January, after local elections, to breakaway from Law and Justice, with electoral lists drawn up before next year’s general elections.

Names mentioned that may support PiS-lite are director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum  Jan Ołdakowski, MP Lena Dąbkowska-Cichocka and MEP Paweł Kowal. (pg)