POLAND-GOVERNMENT/RESHUFFLE Polish PM appoints political novices to her struggling government

Record ID: 151477

  • Title: POLAND-GOVERNMENT/RESHUFFLE Polish PM appoints political novices to her struggling government
  • Date: 15th June 2015
  • Summary: WARSAW, POLAND (JUNE 15, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTERS POLISH AND EU FLAGS PLAQUE, READING (in Polish): "Honour and motherland" POLISH PRIME MINISTER, EWA KOPACZ, ENTERING CONFERENCE ROOM (SOUNDBITE)(Polish) POLISH PRIME MINISTER, EWA KOPACZ, SAYING: "As I announced last week I have made changes in my government. Every person I will present to you now
  • Embargoed: 30th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA80PKFHX734PSKIR37SXZSQM6R
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz appointed a group of relative political unknowns to her cabinet on Monday (June 15) in an effort to regain voters' trust and avoid defeat in a parliamentary election due later this year.
    The appointments included a former Olympic rower, Adam Korol, who was named sports and tourism minister, and Marian Zembala, a celebrated heart surgeon, who is to be the new minister for health, Kopacz told a news conference.
    Kopacz said in a televised address she had also picked Andrzej Czerwinski as the new treasury minister, whose job it is to oversee the state's shares in public companies.
    Czerwinski, a member of parliament with Kopacz's centre-right Civic Platform party, is head of a parliamentary energy panel.
    Last week, Kopacz purged several senior officials from her government, saying she needed to regain public trust. Many voters say the governing party is out of touch after eight years in power, and that they want to see new faces.
    Civic Platform suffered an unexpected defeat last month when its candidate in the presidential election, incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski, lost to the candidate backed by the main opposition Law and Justice party.
    Opinion polls show Civic Platform now trailing the more conservative Law and Justice party.
    Announcing the new appointments, Kopacz said: "Each of these people ... knows what serving the community means, knows what hard work is and knows what it is to be acquainted with the problems of ordinary people."
    Addressing voters directly, Kopacz appealed for their trust.
    "That is why, here and now, I am issuing a declaration, that I and my ministers, day after day, 24 hours a day, through hard work, are going to earn that trust," she said.
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