Poland's Pro-EU Opposition Bloc Splits Following Election Defeat

(Bloomberg) -- Poland’s coalition of pro-European opposition parties broke apart on Saturday when the Peasants Party withdrew after faring badly in last week’s European Parliament ballot.

The move plays into the hands of the ruling Law & Justice party, which won the European Union ballot with a record 45% support, eating into the Peasants’ traditional rural stronghold and taking the driver’s seat for this autumn’s general election. Peasants leader Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said his party’s more conservative voters didn’t like the fact that leftist groups had joined the coalition.

“We’ve decided to build our own group for the general election,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said. “We invite everyone who shares our values to join us.”

Law & Justice benefited from one of the European Union’s fastest-growing economies and improvements in tax collection, which has allowed the government to splurge on welfare. With gross domestic product expanding at a pace of around 5% over the past three years, Poles are becoming more upbeat over their economic futures, even as the EU has sued the government for eroding judiciary independence with its repeated court revamps.

To contact the reporter on this story: Wojciech Moskwa in Warsaw at wmoskwa@bloomberg.net

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

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