Beata Mazurek’s comments came after Tusk, who is now a top European Union official, in a media interview challenged the country’s powerful conservative leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, to run for the presidency in 2020.
Meanwhile, Kaczyński, who heads Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, earlier this month named current President Andrzej Duda as the the party’s probable choice to contend for the top job in 2020.
Tusk was the prime minister of Poland from 2007 until 2014, when he resigned to become president of the European Council, a key European Union leadership position.
When asked in an interview if he was ready to return to Polish politics after his stint in Brussels, Tusk told private Warsaw-based news channel TVN24 on Friday: "It is too early to speculate … but there’s one thing that I can say today: If Jarosław Kaczyński decided to run [for the presidency], I would not hesitate for a moment and would stand for such a duel."
Interviewed in his office in Brussels, Tusk added: "You can ask Chairman Kaczyński back in Poland if he accepts such a challenge.”
Commenting on the remarks, Mazurek said on Saturday that Tusk’s words challenging PiS leader Kaczyński to stand for the presidential race signalled that Tusk was in fact not going to run for the presidency in Poland in 2020.
"It is a signal that Tusk will not run in the election because he knows that Jarosław Kaczyński is not going to run," Mazurek said.
She added: "Donald Tusk does not want to lose against Andrzej Duda, who will be the [ruling party’s] presidential candidate in 2020, according to Chairman Kaczyński.”
According to a June poll, Duda would beat Tusk in the second round of Poland’s 2020 presidential election if both entered the race.
Roughly 52.5 percent of those surveyed by researcher Instytut Badań Pollster in mid-June said they would vote for Duda, who has been Poland's president since 2015, while 47.5 percent said they would support Tusk.
The survey, commissioned by the Super Express tabloid, was conducted on June 13 and 14 on a sample of 1,043 respondents.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP