WARSAW, Nov. 16 (Reuters) - Dissident members of Poland's main opposition party set up a splinter group on Tuesday, a move that is likely to bolster the ruling party in Sunday's municipal elections.
The dissidents, two of whom were recently expelled from the opposition conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) by leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski for alleged disloyalty, are seen as moderates who wanted to shift the party to the centre ground.
A third member of the group quit PiS last week and a fourth said he would quit soon. Three PiS members of the European Parliament, including Michal Kaminski, chairman of the eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists in that assembly, have also joined the new group.
One of the dissidents, Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, said Poland needed more effective opposition after three years of centrist rule by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Civic Platform (PO).
"Around half of Poles support this lazy cabinet, so this raises the question whether the current opposition is proposing a real alternative. Poland needs an ambitious government," she told a news conference.
The growing rift within PiS is expected to further cement the pro-business PO’s strong lead in opinion polls in the countdown to Sunday’s local elections. PiS’s ratings have dwindled to around 22 percent, opinion polls show, though it remains well ahead of other opposition parties.
The new group, which does not have the status of a full-blown political party, has taken the name "Poland is the most important", which was Kaczynski’s slogan in his unsuccessful attempt to win this summer’s presidential election.
The group, which is too late to register for the Nov. 21 and Dec. 5 municipal elections, aims to promote pro-family policies, infrastructure development and a more prominent international role for Poland, the lawmakers said.
BOOST FOR RULING PARTY
The dissident MPs had urged Kaczynski, twin brother of President Lech Kaczynski who died in a plane crash in April, to move to the centre ground in the presidential election, when he won 47 percent of the vote, narrowly losing to the PO candidate Bronislaw Komorowski.
Since then, Kaczynski has turned back to the right and hardened his rhetoric, accusing Russia and the Tusk government of moral responsibility for the April plane crash in Russia in which many PiS officials also died along with President Kaczynski.
Analysts say the new political group could win enough votes to enter parliament in parliamentary elections next autumn.
"This is some sort of a transition formula, a quasi-party. It will be immediately turned into a party if in the near future it shows it enjoys the people’s interest," said Jacek Raciborski, a sociologist at Warsaw University.
"They do have some resources. Members of the European Parliament get money for their offices in their home countries and this could now automatically be transferred to work for the grouping," he said.
