WARSAW, Poland—Kornel Morawiecki, the father of Poland’s prime minister who was also the country’s most senior lawmaker and a leading dissident during the communist era, has died. He was 78.
Morawiecki died in a Warsaw government hospital on Sept. 30 following a long illness.
His son, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, on Friday, cut short a campaign meeting for scheduled Oct. 13 parliamentary elections to be with his father whose health had rapidly deteriorated.
The prime minister’s office confirmed the death.
Poland’s most powerful politician, ruling party head Jaroslaw Kaczynski, expressed “great sorrow” and described Morawiecki as an “outstanding freedom activist” and a “steadfast person.”
European Council President Donald Tusk, who was Poland’s premier in 2007-2014, tweeted words of sympathy to Mateusz Morawiecki, who is his political opponent.
U.S. Ambassador Georgette Mosbacher tweeted to extend condolences to the prime minister.
Kornel Morawiecki, who had the title of senior parliament speaker, was recently awarded Poland’s highest distinction, the Order of the White Eagle, for decades of service to democratic Poland.
He went into hiding after communist authorities imposed martial law to crack down on the pro-democracy movement in December 1981, and was involved in the clandestine printing of anti-communist brochures. He changed his hideouts some 50 times before being caught in 1987 and put in prison for months.
Black and white footage on state TVP showed the moment of his deportation. Morawiecki is seen refusing to climb the steps to the plane and secret security plainclothes men lead him up by force.
In 2010, Morawiecki ran for president of Poland. In 2015, he was elected a member of the lower house of the Polish Parliament and became a senior speaker.
No funeral arrangements were immediately made public.
