Polish Opposition Holds Mass Anti-Government Protest

Facts

• Supporters of the now opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) rallied outside Poland's parliament Thursday to protest changes to public media that Prime Minister Donald Tusk's new government has introduced, as well as against the arrest of former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik.¹
• The rally, which has been dubbed the 'Protest of Free Poles,” was the largest anti-government demonstration since the ruling coalition took office in mid-December, testing the opposition's ability to mobilize voters ahead of local elections in April and European Parliament elections in June.²
• The national-conservative PiS, which had been in office for eight years until last month, put the number of people in the crowd amid cold winter temperatures at 300K, but Warsaw's Civic Platform-controlled City Hall estimated the figure to be roughly 35K.³
• Meanwhile, Pres. Andrzej Duda announced that pardon proceedings have started for Kamiński and Wąsik, whom he claimed are the first political prisoners in the country since 1989 after they were handed two-year jail sentences for abuse of power.⁴
• Regarding the public media reforms that Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz pushed through, the Commercial Division of the National Court Register ruled that management changes to TVP were illegal. Yet, a spokesperson for the European Commission told the news site Euractiv that such an overhaul is needed.⁵
• In another recent development, the Supreme Court ruled that a national vote for the lower house of parliament, known as the Sejm, and the Senate held in October was valid after finding that only 14 out of more than 1K electoral protests concerning the parliamentary elections were justified but didn't affect the result.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²Financial Times, ³Notes From Poland, ⁴Warsawvoice, ⁵www.euractiv.com and ⁶The Firstnews.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Euronews. Tusk was expected to face an uphill battle to free Polish institutions from the political control of the undemocratic PiS. However, the situation has proven harder than he and his plural coalition might have envisioned. During its eight-year rule, PiS was able to overcome power-balancing mechanisms to gain control over public media services as well as the judiciary.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by The Telegraph. These developments expose the hypocrisy of European liberal circles. If any other political leader adopted Tusk’s tactics, there would be outrage, disquiet, and widespread claims of illiberalism. Yet, the simple fact that Tusk is a Brussels-backed former president of the European Council apparently gives him a free pass to do whatever he pleases.

Predictions