Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party leader and deputy prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has resigned from his position in government, PAP news agency said on Tuesday.
Kaczyński told the PAP news agency on Tuesday that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda had already accepted his request to step down from the post.
The move was first announced some two weeks ago.
“I’m not in the government right now. I have already submitted a motion to the prime minister and it has been approved.
“As far as I know, the president has also signed it,’’ Kaczynski said, according to PAP.
Kaczynski, who was also the head of the government’s national security and defence affairs committee, said that he would be replaced by the Minister of National Defence, Mariusz Blaszczak.
He said his party needed to regroup.
Parliamentary elections are due in the autumn of 2023.
The 73-year-old had been deputy head of government since October 2020 and had coordinated the areas of internal security and defence.
This function will now be taken over by Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak.
The PiS co-founder was prime minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007.
Since his party took power again in 2015, he has been regarded as a key decision-maker in Polish politics, with or without government office.