How Poland's Right-Wing Split Alters the 2027 Election Landscape

(JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

The parliament building is seen through a European flag during a demonstration against a judicial reform pushed by lawmakers of the ruling Law and Justice party on Jan. 23, 2020, in Warsaw, Poland.

The breakup of Poland's main opposition party further fragments the country's right-wing camp ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election, leaving a right-wing majority still likely but dependent on far-right support that would renew confrontation with Brussels and worsen relations with Ukraine. Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced on July 29 that his newly formed center-right Development Plus party will form its own parliamentary caucus, splitting from the right-wing opposition Law and Justice, or PiS, his former party. The new group becomes the Sejm's third-largest, cutting PiS from 186 seats to 146 and leaving Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Coalition, or KO, as the chamber's largest force at 156. Morawiecki, prime minister under PiS from 2017 to 2023, founded Development Plus in April as an association within PiS, presenting it as a technocratic platform for moderate conservatives.