WARSAW, November 9 (RIA Novosti) - Polish President Lech Kaczynski nominated Donald Tusk as the country's prime minister on Friday, and asked him to form a government.
Tusk, who heads the center-right Civic Platform party, replaces the president's twin brother as premier. Jaroslaw Kaczynsky resigned with his government on Monday following his conservative, nationalist Law and Justice party's election defeat last month.
At a news conference after private talks with the president, Tusk, 50, said his new government would be sworn in on November 16, and that on November 23 he would make a policy speech in parliament and ask lawmakers for a vote of confidence.
He said that he is ready to cooperate with his political rival, the president, on all key matters. Tusk unsuccessfully ran against Lech Kaczynski in the 2005 presidential elections.
The prime minister-designate said his government would make maximum efforts to improve Polish-Russian relations, which have been consistently frosty since the fall of communism in Europe.
"The signals that are reaching me indicate that this [a thaw in relations] is possible," he said, adding that he hoped "there is such will from the Russian side."
Tusk is in talks with the Peasants' Party (also translated as the People's Party), led by Waldemar Pawlak, on forming a majority coalition.
Pawlak's party could receive the posts of deputy prime minister and economics minister in the new government. The two parties together have 240 seats in parliament, more than the 231 votes needed to approve a government.
