Polish opposition groups say Donald Tusk is their candidate for prime minister

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The leaders of the opposition parties that collectively won the most votes in Poland’s recent elections announced Tuesday that Donald Tusk, the leader of the largest group, is their candidate to be prime minister and that they want to get to work as soon as possible.

“We are ready to create a government,” Tusk, a former prime minister and former president of the European Council who heads the Civic Platform party, said as he and other opposition party leaders stood together in parliament to announce their decision to cooperate.

He thanked the other leaders “for your trust.”

The announcement came just before President Andrzej Duda opened two days of consultations with the heads of parties that won seats in the new parliament. Duda first welcomed Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other representatives from the conservative ruling Law and Justice party to the presidential palace. A meeting with Tusk was to follow.

Tuesday’s developments mark important steps on the path to the formation of a government after the national election on Oct. 15, though it is still unclear when a new government can take over in the Central European nation of 38 million people.

The opposition groups that collectively won the most votes campaigned on promises to restore democratic standards and ties with the European Union that worsened over the eight years of rule by Law and Justice. They together won over 54% of the votes and will have a comfortable 248 seats in the 460-seat Sejm, the lower house of parliament. They took an even greater share of the seats in the Senate, though it has far less power.

When a new government will take over depends on Duda. It is the president’s responsibility to call the first meeting of the new parliament, something which must happen no later than 30 days after the election, and ask a prime minister candidate to try to build a Cabinet that can win a vote of confidence in the Sejm.

It might not be until December that a new government is sworn in if Duda chooses to wait the full 30 days to call parliament and if he first asks the ruling Law and Justice party - his political ally - to try to build a government. He could do that to give the party more time in office.

Law and Justice won more votes than any other single party in the election but it lost its majority and will not hold enough seats to govern the country.

The opposition leaders called on Duda to respect that voters called for change in the country and to quickly tap Tusk as candidate for prime minister.

“We appeal to President Duda not to waste even a second of our time. The time of Polish women and men is priceless,” said Szymon Holownia, head of the centrist Poland 2050 party that is one of two parties in the Third Way electoral coalition.

Duda will continue his consultations on Wednesday with the leaders of Third Way and the New Left, who are backing Tusk, as well as with the far-right party Confederation.