• Poland's right-wing Law and Order Party (PiS) collapsed after leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski expelled former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki amid infighting over the party's future direction.
• Morawiecki and 40 allied lawmakers are leaving PiS, with uncertainty over whether Morawiecki will form his own party.
• The split was triggered by disagreements over the party's future course, with Kaczynski nominating a hardliner for prime minister, leading to Morawiecki's resignation.

Poland's right-wing Law and Order Party (PiS) collapsed on Friday after its leader Jarosław Kaczyński expelled former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki amid infighting over the party's future direction.

While Kaczyński framed the split as a voluntary resignation by Morawiecki and a group of allied lawmakers for refusing to sign a party loyalty pledge, Morawiecki and political observers saw this as a forced ousting.

Forty members of parliament are also leaving, according to Morawiecki, who has not yet indicated whether he intends to form his own party.

At the heart of the conflict was the future course of the once-powerful party that governed Poland from 2015 to 2023, reshaping the country according to its own vision, and leading it into a protracted conflict with the EU.

In March, Kaczyński nominated hardliner Przemysław Czarnek as his candidate for prime minister in next year's parliamentary election. His stated aim was to make PiS more attractive to voters of far-right parties.

The economically liberal former banker Morawiecki, 58, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023, felt slighted by Czarnek's nomination.

He responded by founding the "Development Plus" group with moderate colleagues and demanded that PiS "return to a broad coalition of the Polish right and centre-right parties."

Kaczyński in turn issued an ultimatum: the group had to dissolve and all members were to sign a declaration of loyalty. Morawiecki let the ultimatum expire. "We couldn't allow ourselves to be forced to sign declarations of loyalty," he said as he exited the party.

The party council would formalize the resignation of Morawiecki and "30" of his supporters on Tuesday, according to Kaczyński.

With 186 lawmakers PiS was previously the largest faction in the Polish parliament.