Three Polish ministers, assembly speaker resign ahead of election

Kopacz told a hastily convened news conference that she needed to restore voter trust in Civic Platform, which has been in government since 2007 but now faces defeat in the coming parliamentary election.

Public confidence has been dented by the leak of audiotapes in which senior officials including ministers could be heard in pricy Warsaw restaurants cracking off-colour jokes, ordering expensive wine and making indiscreet comments about colleagues and foreign leaders.

The tapes first emerged last year but the issue resurfaced this week when confidential files compiled by prosecutors investigating the bugging of the conversations were leaked onto social media.

Kopacz said she wanted to repair the damage caused by the tapes and prevent them becoming the focus of the election campaign. "For the last two days public opinion has focussed on the illegal eavesdropping, which has a negative impact on the functions of the state," Kopacz said.

She said that parliamentary speaker Radoslaw Sikorski, a member of the ruling party and a former foreign minister who featured in the tapes, had resigned.

Wlodzimierz Karpinski, the treasury minister in charge of managing the state's holdings in public companies, Health Minister Bartosz Arlukowicz and Sports Minister Andrzej Biernat had also stepped down, she said.

Jan-Vincent Rostowski, a former finance minister who has been serving as chief adviser to Kopacz, is also quitting, the premier said. Rostowski was also heard in the audio recordings.

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Marcin Goettig and Mark Heinrich)