WARSAW, Poland — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki offered his conservative government’s resignation on Monday as required as the newly elected parliament met for the first time in a protracted transition of power following last month’s election.
The lower chamber, or Sejm, in its first vote overwhelmingly chose center-right Szymon Holownia, an opponent of Morawiecki, as its speaker.
An alliance of pro-European Union parties vowing to restore democratic standards won a strong parliamentary majority in the Oct. 15 election and is expected to take power. Its candidate for prime minister is Donald Tusk, the centrist and pro-EU former prime minister.
But the alliance will have to wait, perhaps for weeks. Conservative President Andrzej Duda, who is allied with Morawiecki’s right-wing Law and Justice party, is asking Morawiecki to try to build another government and will reappoint him as a prime minister candidate on Monday evening.
Morawiecki in an address to parliament expressed a desire to build a new government that transcends party divisions. When he appealed for support, his critics responded with laughter.
Duda, whose term runs for another year and a half, is expected to have a difficult relationship with the new legislature. He has already angered the winning coalition by asking Morawiecki to try to build a government even thoug