Five deputy speakers have been elected but the candidature of Witek, the Sejm speaker of the former term of office, has been rejected. Witek was supported by 203 MPs, 252 were against and three abstained.
Paweł Supernak/PAP

The Sejm, lower house of parliament, has rejected the candidature of Elzbieta Witek of the social-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party for deputy speaker.

Earlier in the day, during its first sitting after October’s general election, the Sejm decided to appoint six deputy speakers, instead of five to date, so that each caucus has a representative in the Sejm presidium.

Five deputy speakers have been elected but the candidature of Witek, the Sejm speaker of the former term of office, has been rejected. Witek was supported by 203 MPs, 252 were against and three abstained.

The three opposition parties that are likely to form a new government have accused Witek of serving her party’s interests, breaking parliamentary rules and discriminating against opposition MPs during Sejm sessions in the previous parliamentary term. They acknowledge PiS should have its deputy speaker in the new Sejm, but say the party should put forward a different candidate.

“We are ready not to have a deputy Sejm speaker,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS leader, said later on Monday.

Kaczynski added that the PiS caucus would not forward any other candidate.

“If there is to be a change, it must come from the other side,” he said.

The new deputy Sejm speakers elected on Monday are Monika Wielichowska and Dorota Niedziela of the Civic Coalition, Wlodzimierz Czarzasty of the New Left, Piotr Zgorzelski of the Third Way and Krzysztof Bosak of the far-right Confederation.

The three opposition groupings collectively won 248 seats in a 460-seat parliament in the general election on October 15 and asked the president to allow them to form a government and replace the incumbent socially-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which won 194 seats. The Confederation has 18 MPs.