Jaroslaw Kaczynski at party rally last night. photo - PAP Piotr Polak“[The governing] Civic Platform’s time is coming to an end - the rest is in our hands,” party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told a rally in Radom last night after exit polls suggested that the gap between Civic Platform and Law and Justice was not as wide as had been predicted by pre-election opinion polls.
Kaczynski said that if it were not for the recent setting up of the ‘
Poland is the most important’ association by MPs expelled or resigned from the Law and Justice party, such as Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska and Pawel Poncyljusz, his party would “have won the election”.
His words were echoed by Law and Justice leader in parliament, Mariusz Blaszczak. He told the party faithful last night that the results would have been better “if not for a group of former colleagues who have taken their own political path”.
“Law and Justice is a party that can govern Poland and is ready to take responsibility for years,” he said to applause.
Minutes after exit polls were announced last night, two more Law and Justice members, MEP Pawel Kowal and MP Tomasz Dudziński, declared their resignation from the party, however.
Pawel Kowal, after declaring his intention to join the new PiS-lite group, said that he had been considering his membership of the party for some weeks.
"The first impulse that led me to this was [
the conflict over the Smolensk] cross, which for me, as a Catholic, was very painful. I was angry both with President Komorowski, who started [the conflict], as well as with colleagues from Law and Justice,” he said.
When asked how he felt about another one of his members defecting to the new PiS-lite, Kaczynski dismissed it, saying he had expected it: “This is not news,” he said.
(pg) source:
PAP/IAR