Scandal in Warsaw

Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski on Wednesday denounced an outlawed "grey network" that he said was trying to discredit his ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party by setting up a key PiS official in a hidden camera interview.

"PiS is holding talks aimed at finding support for our government and the changes it is introducing," Kaczynski said in an address to the nation aired on public television. The changes that PiS wants to introduce in Poland "bother those who form informal and formal grey networks and who, up to now, have acted outside any legal and constitutional order," Kaczynski said.

His fighting talk came a day after a key PiS official, Adam Lipinski, was shown on a rival television station, apparently trying to convince a lawmaker from the populist Samoobrona party, Renata Beger, to quit her party and join PiS.

Beger was privy to the secret film, as she was wearing the hidden camera herself.

"You know, it's not a problem because we have lots of vacant posts," Lipinski said at one point to Beger during their discussion.

PiS has been trying to cobble together a new governing coalition since last week, when Kaczynski sacked Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper from the posts of deputy prime minister and agriculture minister, after the two rowed about the budget.

Tapes rile opposition and potential partners

The affair, which the Polish media have dubbed "Begergate," has riled opposition parties, who said the Lipinski meeting with Beger was proof that political corruption was rife in PiS.

The biggest opposition party, the liberal Civic Platform (PO), called for an extraordinary session of parliament to be convened to debate the scandal.

Poland's Peasants Party, a potential coalition partner for PiS, announced Wednesday that it was abandoning talks on joining the government, saying the recently disclosed footage revealed unfairness and corruption in Kaczynski's party, according to the Associated Press.

Kaczynski rejects corruption accusations

But Kaczynski on Wednesday evening reiterated what PiS leaders had said earlier, and rejected the accusations of corruption.

"To call this corruption is a lie and hypocrisy, both aimed at provoking a political crisis," Kaczynski said in his address to the nation.

PiS would demand that a parliamentary committee be set up "to shed light on this provocation, which was organized within parliament," Marek Kuchcinski, head of PiS's parliamentary group, told reporters.

He said that the hidden camera that filmed Lipinski was "equipment from the special services" -- which, in PiS terminology, is an accusation that communist-era secret services were involved.

Elected on anti-corruption platform

Kaczynski and his twin brother Lech, Poland's president, made the fight against corruption and a purge of Poland's communist past key platforms of their successful election campaigns last year.

If PiS fails to find new allies to form a parliamentary majority, the prime minister has said he will call early elections. Polls have shown PiS would not fare as well as last year, when it won the most seats of any party in general elections but fell short of a majority.

But political pundits insisted that the Kaczynskis and PiS would not quietly fade into the background of Polish politics.

"PiS wants to hold on to power at all costs. It has already tried to turn the tables and accuse the opposition over this affair, and it has enough lawmakers to block the dissolution of parliament," political scientist Kazimierz Kik said.

"There is only a slight probability that PiS will succeed in putting together a new majority, but that doesn't automatically mean they will call early elections," said Mikolaj Czesnik, a political analyst from the Polish Academy of Sciences.

"The most likely scenario, which would also be the worst-case scenario for Poland, is that the conservatives remain in power with a minority government," he said.