Two of Poland’s top military commanders, including the chief of the general staff, have tendered their resignations just days before a crucial parliamentary election that will determine the future political course of the country.
The army confirmed on Tuesday that Gen Rajmund Andrzejczak, the chief of the general staff, and the operational commander, Lt Gen Tomasz Piotrowski, had submitted their resignations.
The resignations are a blow to the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has run its election campaign based on a claim it is a patriotic force protecting Poland from external enemies, and is the only party that can take care of the country’s security.
PiS is seeking a third consecutive term in office, but is facing a challenge from opposition groupings led by the former prime minister and European Council president Donald Tusk. Polls suggest the race will be extremely close.
“It is a symbolic decision. They decided to take this step just before the elections to show that they do not have confidence in this political class,” the former foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz told news portal Onet.pl.
Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza reported that the final straw for the two generals was a decision by the interior minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, to put another commander, Gen Wiesław Kukuła, in charge of a military operation to evacuate Polish citizens from Israel in recent days. The tension between the army top brass and the defence ministry has apparently been growing for months, with bit decisions made in circumvention of the army leadership.
In May, Błaszczak publicly criticised Piotrowski over the army’s reaction to a stray Russian missile that landed in a forest deep inside Poland and was found by a civilian in April.
The Rzeczpospolita daily, which first reported the resignations, said the two generals also objected to the way the army had been dragged into the government’s re-election campaign.
Gen Mirosław Różański, a former top army commander who is now standing as an independent candidate in elections to the senate, agreed that the resignations were partly down to the politicisation of the army by the government.
Różański wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Public questioning of competency, and humiliation of generals, by Błaszczak … [and] the politicisation of the Polish armed forces and use of the army in the election campaign” were among the reasons for the resignations.
The PiS-aligned president, Andrzej Duda accepted the resignations after convening a meeting of the national security bureau. He appointed Kukuła as chief of staff and Maj Gen Maciej Klisz as armed forces operational commander.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Tusk said he had information that a further 10 senior officers had resigned. The army command first denied this, then confirmed that 10 other officers had indeed quit, but said they were not high ranking and their departures were routine. “People retire and just hand in their notice,” a spokesperson told Reuters.
