Morawiecki's new Polish government sworn in before confidence vote

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's president on Monday swore in members of a government that will likely only last until December, in what opposition parties say is a "farce" intended to delay them from taking power after they won a majority in October's election.

The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, in power since 2015, came first in the election but fell well short of the 231 seats needed for a majority and appears unlikely to win a vote of confidence in parliament.

A broad alliance of pro-European Union parties, led by Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk, secured 248 seats and declared their readiness to form a government, but nevertheless PiS ally President Andrzej Duda gave Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki the first shot at doing so.

"We abide by tradition by appointing a government formed by a candidate selected by the political camp which won parliamentary elections," Duda said after swearing in the ministers.

The next step is for Morawiecki to win the confidence vote in two weeks' time, but given the numbers of seats, that looks unlikely.

That would lead to another nomination for prime minister and that person needing a simple majority in another confidence vote. The opposition is hoping a Tusk-led cabinet would achieve power during this step.

Morawiecki's new government will be composed of 50% of women and is set out to be a cabinet of experts. Several officials from his previous cabinet stayed on and some deputy ministers were promoted.

However, several prominent PiS politicians, including former State Assets Minister Jacek Sasin, have said they will not join the new government, leading opposition politicians and commentators to say that the party's big-hitters do not want to be in an administration that is doomed to failure.

PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Monday the suggestion that the party's heavyweights did not want to participate was "an outright lie" and that forming a government made up of experts rather than politicians had been his idea.

"The point is that there should not be too many politicians in this government," he told state-run news agency PAP. "We want to show that it is possible to govern differently."

The prime minister has vowed to implement the policy proposals of opposition parties in a bid to persuade them to work with him.

However, his appeals have gained little traction with opposition lawmakers who accuse PiS of presiding over democratic backsliding that has blocked EU funds, an erosion of women's rights, the demonisation of minority groups like the LGBT community and rampant nepotism in state companies.

"We all know that this is one big comedy and farce," Marcin Kierwinski, a lawmaker from the liberal Civic Coalition (KO) grouping, told private broadcaster Radio Zet. "It is a fight for time."

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Ed Osmond and Alison Williams)