The first proceedings of the Sejm will be led by the Senior Marshal – Marek Sawicki of PSL (Third Way). The first to speak will be President Andrzej Duda, who is expected to deliver an address.
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During today’s proceedings, the new MPs will take their oath. The Speaker, deputy speakers and secretaries will also be elected, while Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the government are expected to resign.
PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński was late for the first sitting of the Sejm. The party leader was not in his seat in the parliamentary chamber when proceedings were opened by Marshal Marek Sawicki and the national anthem was played. He took his seat while President Andrzej Duda was speaking.
Updated 2023-11-13, 15:20
The Sejm elected its Speaker. The candidates for the office were: Szymon Hołownia of Poland 2050 (Third Way) and Elżbieta Witek of PiS (United Right). Szymon Hołownia became Speaker of the Sejm. He received 265 votes. Elżbieta Witek received 193 votes. A total of 459 MPs took part in the vote. The absolute majority was 230 MPs.
The result of the vote for Speaker showed who holds the majority in the current Sejm. Poles said very clearly enough of what has been happening.
The new Speaker thanked the nearly 22 million citizens who decided Poland’s future on 15 October.
Watch the first post-election sitting of the Sejm:
One of Szymon Hołownia’s first decisions was to dismantle the barriers that surrounded the Sejm building during the previous term. The barriers are already being dismantled by people who came to the Sejm as Monday’s proceedings began. The services did not intervene:
People are dismantling the barriers in front of the Sejm.
According to Hołownia, Enough of these barriers being put up between us. As the new Speaker announced, the Sejm will no longer be a government service point or a voting machine. The so-called freezer is also to disappear from the Speaker’s office. This is to be a new quality in which the word “party” is to be replaced by the word “patria.”
Updated 2023-11-13, 18:15
The Sejm voted to have six deputy speakers. Under these proposals, the Civic Coalition will have two deputy speakers, while PSL, the Left, Confederation and PiS will each have one. Law and Justice announced that it would nominate Elżbieta Witek for the position and that she was the party’s only candidate. If she is not elected, PiS may be left without a deputy speaker. Some of the opposition openly do not support this candidacy.
Updated 2023-11-13, 19:55
The Sejm has decided. The deputy speakers of the Sejm are: Dorota Niedziela of the KO, Monika Wielichowska of the KO, Piotr Zgorzelski of PSL, Włodzimierz Czarzasty of the Left and Krzysztof Bosak of Confederation. The Sejm rejected the PiS candidate – Elżbieta Witek. Sejm Speaker Szymon Hołownia announced that the election to the unfilled deputy speaker position would take place at a later date.