Former Polish premier Mateusz Morawiecki announced plans on October 31 to seek a constructive vote of no confidence in Donald Tusk’s government, a day after riot police deployed at the Constitutional Tribunal amid a leadership fight.

Morawiecki, who leads the Rozwoj Plus caucus that broke away from the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party in the summer, proposed a constructive vote naming former Sejm speaker Marek Jurek to head a technical government until the 2027 election. He called for a "constitutional reset" and warned that the stand-off could end in bloodshed or even civil war, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

A constructive no-confidence motion needs 231 votes in the 460-seat Sejm and is unlikely to pass. Rozwoj Plus has about 40 MPs, and Morawiecki would need PiS, which expelled him in August, both far-right Confederation parties and defectors from the ruling coalition, which elected its latest tribunal judge with 226 votes in September. But the crisis is the most serious fight over Poland's top court since PiS captured the tribunal in 2015-2016, now running in reverse: a pro-EU government is using police and prosecutors to unseat PiS-era judges, while a nationalist president defends them.

Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, one of eight judges elected by the Sejm this year whom President Karol Nawrocki has refused to swear in, announced on October 30 that she had suspended tribunal president Bogdan Swieczkowski and his deputy Bartlomiej Sochanski for a month and taken charge of the court. Justice Minister and Prosecutor-General Waldemar Zurek has asked for both men's immunity to be lifted. The tribunal called the move a "coup d'etat" and said both remain in post.

Police said officers entered the tribunal grounds, but not the building, after objects were thrown at them by protesters, Polskie Radio reported. Nawrocki turned his plane around mid-flight on the way to Senegal. "At such a moment, the president must be in Poland," he said on X.

Back in Warsaw, Nawrocki pushed past Korwin-Piotrowska in the early hours of October 31 and told the judges "you are not Constitutional Tribunal judges", according to video footage reported by Notes from Poland. A statement read for the president at about 5am described "a violation of the constitutional order of Poland", and Nawrocki called consultations with parliamentary parties for the afternoon.

Tusk gave no ground in a televised address on the evening of October 31. "In certain matters there can be no compromise," he said, adding that the government had "waited calmly for new judges to be chosen, until the terms of their predecessors appointed by PiS expired," Euronews reported. He also warned that pro-Russian groups could exploit the conflict.

Brussels has so far sided with the government. A European Commission spokesperson said the Sejm's appointment of eight new tribunal members was within its constitutional powers, citing a Venice Commission opinion of October 13, and that Polish authorities must ensure the tribunal can work in line with the constitution, RMF24 reported. The EU Court of Justice ruled in December 2025 that the tribunal was compromised by irregular appointments. The Commission unblocked €137bn of EU funds for Poland in 2024 on Tusk's pledge to restore the rule of law.

Markets were already nervous. The zloty weakened past 4.40 to the euro last week, and the ECB's reference rate stood at 4.4038 on October 30, against 4.2023 at its strongest this year in late January. "Poland-specific uncertainty is probably dominant," Commerzbank analyst Tatha Ghose said in an October 27 note, adding that it was "difficult to envisage a near-term trigger which will reverse the zloty's underperformance".

A second institutional fight is due within days. The term of the National Bank of Poland's last deputy governor, Adam Lipinski, expires on November 4, the day the central bank announces its next rate decision, and the Sejm could vote on sending governor Adam Glapinski to the State Tribunal in early November.

The confrontation comes a year before a general election that Tusk's camp looks likely to lose. Tusk's Civic Coalition led an October IBRiS poll with 27.8%, but his four-party coalition drew 40.4% against 43.2% for PiS and the two Confederation parties. PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski floated EU exit talks as a pressure tactic on October 28.