WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk and his centrist coalition government suffered a bitter defeat in parliament on Friday, where a narrow majority rejected legislation that would have eased the situation. strict anti-abortion law.
The vote was 218-215 with two abstentions to reject the liberalisation proposal.
Tusk and his liberal Civic Coalition parliamentary group backed the bill that would have lifted the current penalty for those who assist women with abortions, which faces up to three years in prison.
Liberalization was a key part of Tusk’s program to reverse several policies of the previous right-wing government that had led to mass protests.
However, some MPs from the broader governing coalition — notably from the agrarian Polish People’s Party, but also some others — voted against the change, exposing cracks in the governing bloc.
Of the 460 seats in the lower house, or Sejm, Tusk’s Civic Coalition has 157 seats, coalition members Third Road and the Agrarian Party have another 63 votes, while the allied Left Party contributes another 23 votes, giving it a majority.
Left-wing lawmakers who promoted the bill repeatedly vowed to resubmit it until it passes.
However, conservative president Andrzej Dudawho was an ally of the previous right-wing Law and Justice government, said this week that he will not sign the liberalization because for him abortion is equivalent to killing people.
A few hours after the vote, parliament speaker Szymon Holownia said that the parliament website had been hacked and was inaccessible around the time of the vote. It was not immediately clear whether that had any impact on the vote.
