Morawiecki is still Poland’s prime minister – but he is unlikely to rule for long because he lacks a majority in parliament. Meanwhile, the opposition alliance creates facts and dismisses the “Lex Tusk” commission.
Four older men stand in the visitors’ gallery of the Sejm, the Polish parliament in Warsaw. They’re smiling even though they’ve just been fired. The PiS faction stands down in the hall and applauds them. “Thank you,” shout the PiS MPs. Because the men in the stands were part of the biggest attack on the Polish opposition in the election campaign.
“Lex Tusk” is the malicious name given to the law with which the PiS convened a commission to investigate Russian influences on Polish politics – not coincidentally in the period from 2007, precisely from the time of government of Donald Tusk, the main opposition candidate.
This was intended to damage Tusk before the election, but now he will most likely become the new Polish Prime Minister.
Opposition forms majority in parliament
The PiS is still clinging to power and is doing its best to delay the change of government. However, the opposition has had a majority in the Sejm since the election. It cannot abolish the commission, but it can remove its eight members. And she does.
“If this commission were to do its job reliably, then it would explain why Poland pursued a policy similar to that of Vladimir Putin in Russia: silencing the free media, eliminating non-governmental organizations, spreading fake news,” says Borys Budka the opposition citizens’ coalition during the debate.
Only the PiS imported coal from Russia on a large scale. If anyone played into Putin’s hands, he argues, it was the PiS itself.
Still-opposition creates facts
The PiS faction reacts with an outcry, but Budka announces a reckoning on behalf of the coalition that will soon govern. “Yes, my dears, that is exactly what is happening today. The pro-Russian policies of the last eight years are being gradually reversed,” shouts Budka. “We will calmly repair what you have broken over the last eight years.”
In between there is almost a fight in the plenary session. The PiS has to watch as the current opposition creates facts even before it comes into government. At the same time, she maintains that she is open to a coalition in order to be able to continue to govern without stopping attacks on the opposition in front of her own electorate.
Morawiecki: Tusk has established connections with Russia
There are concrete indications that prove that Donald Tusk’s party wanted to establish various connections with Russia, says Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, “even back then, in those years that were marked by the blood of the Georgians, the Ukrainians and all the victims of the Smolensk disaster “. Morawiecki is referring to the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, in which Poland’s President Leck Kaczynski and many passengers died.
And the gentlemen in the stands? They smile because they delivered just before they were released. Although there is no investigation report, there is still the theory that Polish secret services under Tusk cooperated with others, including the Russian secret service. Tusk is therefore not suitable for public office. They do not mention that the PiS did not suddenly break off all contacts with Moscow after its election in 2015.
Martin Adam, ARD Warsaw, tagesschau, November 30, 2023 9:01 p.m