PiS expels 40 lawmakers who formed breakaway caucus led by ex-PM Morawiecki

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s largest opposition party, the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), has expelled 40 of its lawmakers in response to them forming a breakaway parliamentary caucus led by PiS deputy leader and former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The decision formalises a split that began last month, when Morawiecki and his supporters refused to resign from a political association they had formed and sign a pledge of loyalty to PiS. They represented a more moderate faction that had long been unhappy with the party’s move in a hard-right direction.

Koleżeński Sąd Dyscyplinarny PiS podjął decyzję o wykluczeniu z partii 38 posłów i 2 senatorów wchodzących w skład klubu Rozwój Plus, w tym byłego premiera Mateusza Morawieckiego – przekazał rzecznik dyscyplinarny PiS Karol Karski. https://t.co/Qe6KuPVUVZ

— tvp.info 🇵🇱 (@tvp_info) August 13, 2026

On Thursday, PiS’s disciplinary spokesman, Karol Karski, announced that its disciplinary court had found that 38 MPs and two senators “seriously violated the PiS statute by leaving the PiS parliamentary caucus and joining a new caucus” founded by Morawiecki, called Development Plus (Rozwój Plus).

Karski added that all 40, including Morawiecki, had been notified of the decision by email and been sent scans of the ruling. They have seven days to appeal. If no appeal is filed, they will officially cease to be PiS members, Karski said.

A statement from the party’s disciplinary court, cited by news website Onet, also noted that Morawiecki had committed a further “serious violation” of the party’s statute by announcing last week that Development Plus would become a political party.

Mateusz Morawiecki has confirmed that his Development Plus group, which is splitting from the national-conservative opposition PiS party, will soon form a party of its own.

However, he categorically ruled out ever working with Prime Minister @donaldtusk https://t.co/J6mQaer4MA

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 4, 2026

Among those to be expelled are several former government ministers, including Janusz Cieszyński, Paweł Jabłoński, Olga Semeniuk-Patkowska and Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk.

Some of the ousted lawmakers expressed their disappointment at PiS’s decision. “Someone who has done everything for PiS is being expelled simply because he wanted to broaden the party’s voter base,” Grzegorz Puda, another former minister, told the Fakt daily.

Another, Łukasz Schreiber, told news website Onet that, in reality, the decision to expel them had been taken when party leader Jarosław Kaczyński said in July they had effectively resigned by refusing to sign the loyalty pledge. “Everything else was just a formality.”

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Morawiecki served as prime minister from 2017 until 2023, when PiS lost power to the current government, a more liberal coalition led by Donald Tusk.

The party has plunged into crisis this year, with its support in polls falling to the lowest level in over 15 years. In response to a growing challenge from the far right, Kaczyński has shifted PiS itself rightwards .

That frustrated more moderate figures around Morawiecki, who founded the Development Plus association in April this year as a way of promoting their ideas. However, that prompted criticism from some other members of the party, who saw it as a step towards creating a breakaway group.

The split in PiS is a blow to the party and its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński.

But the potential emergence of a new centre-right party led by Mateusz Morawiecki could actually help the opposition win a majority at next year's elections, writes @danieltilles1 https://t.co/xMP7e4rOFf

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 31, 2026

Matters came to a head in July, when Morawiecki and his supporters refused to quit their association and sign the pledge of loyalty demanded by Kaczyński. They then formed their own caucus, which immediately became the third largest in parliament and meant that PiS’s was no longer the biggest.

Last week, Morawiecki confirmed that his group would soon form a new party of its own. He laid out a vision of a more moderate, centre-right party that would focus on economic development rather than “ideological disputes”.

Its first policy proposal was to establish a special “salary” for parents, equivalent to the minimum wage, that they would be paid for the first three years of a child’s life, with the aim of boosting Poland’s birth rate, which is one of the lowest in the world.

According to poll aggregator eWybory.eu, Development Plus already has average support of 5.6% in polls, despite not yet being a party. Support for PiS has fallen to 20.3%, down from 24.4% in July.

Average support in polls for Poland’s main political groups (source: eWybory.eu )

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Rozwój Plus/X