Kaczynski Plots to Step Out of Shadows to Lead Poland, WP Says

(Bloomberg) -- Poland’s most powerful politician, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, may be the country’s next prime minister if his Law & Justice party wins the upcoming parliamentary elections by a significant margin, according to the news website Wp.pl.

Premier Mateusz Morawiecki would stay on as Kaczynski’s deputy, with responsibility for the economy, finances and to represent the country abroad, Wp.pl said Thursday, citing an unidentified person close to Kaczynski. The septuagenarian wants to run the government again after a stint in 2006-2007, cut short when he called a snap election and lost.

Kaczynski has effectively run the country since 2015 without having any official position other than a rank-and-file lawmaker. The veteran politician has orchestrated Poland’s challenge to Europe’s mainstream and liberal democratic standards. The drive has put the country of 38 million on a collision course with its western allies and facing lawsuits regarding its power grab of the nation’s judiciary.

The Law & Justice press office didn’t immediately reply to emails and phone calls seeking comment on the report.

Boosted by a strong economy and tightly controlled public media, Kaczynski’s party is in the driver’s seat to win a general election expected in October after surging to a landslide victory in the European Parliament ballots in May. Law & Justice routinely polls above 40%, better than its 2015 result, while the largest opposition bloc usually struggles to clear 30% support.

Since losing power in 2007, Kaczynski has chosen to remain in the political shadows, selecting the more popular Beata Szydlo and then Morawiecki to run the government. A CBOS survey from June shows that 40% of the electorate don’t trust Kaczynski, the second-worst showing in the poll after Grzegorz Schetyna, the leader of the pro-European opposition.

To contact the reporters on this story: Wojciech Moskwa in Warsaw at wmoskwa@bloomberg.net;Maciej Martewicz in Warsaw at mmartewicz@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net, Piotr Bujnicki

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