Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Poland after the arrest of two convicted politicians from the replaced ruling party PiS. President Duda announced that he would pardon the politicians again.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Poland against the center-left government of Donald Tusk. Supporters of the national conservative opposition party PiS gathered in front of the parliament building in Warsaw. They carried Polish flags and posters reading: “This is Poland, not Tuskoland” and “Minister of Culture – Minister of Censorship.” According to the Warsaw City Hall there were 35,000 participants, the organizers spoke of 100,000 to 300,000.
During his appearance in front of the demonstrators, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski warned that the EU was planning to “liquidate the Polish fatherland” and wanted to reduce it to a “residential area for Poles.” Referring to Tusk’s pro-European coalition government, which has been in office for almost a month, Kaczynski said: “This is not a Polish government.” The PiS assumes that Tusk is acting on behalf of Germany.
Originally protesting against the restructuring of the media
The “Protest of the Free Poles” organized by the national conservatives who were voted out in October was originally intended to be directed against the restructuring of the public media. A few weeks ago, Tusk’s government began restructuring the TVP television station, Polish radio and the PAP news agency, which the PiS had brought under control during its eight years in power.
However, the conflict over the arrest of two legally convicted PiS politicians shifted the focus of the event. Former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his former State Secretary Maciej Wasik were arrested and taken to prison on Tuesday after initially seeking protection in the presidential palace from Head of State Andrzej Duda. The PiS describes the two as “political prisoners”.
Duda announces another pardon
Kaminski and Wasik were sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of office in an appeal by a Warsaw district court in December and were due to begin their sentences. Duda pardoned the two after an initial trial in 2015. However, the Supreme Court declared this pardon to be unlawful because the appeal process was still ongoing at the time.
Shortly before the demonstration began, Duda announced that he wanted to pardon Kaminski and Wasik a second time. Party leader Kaczynski called on the demonstrators to hold short protests in front of the two detention centers where Kaminski and Wasik are housed.
“Our neighboring country is sliding into one constitutional crisis”
For historian Felix Ackermann from the Open University of Hagen, the protests in Poland are a sign that “our neighboring country is sliding into a constitutional crisis.” The arrest of the two PiS politicians shows “how two different legal opinions collide and are deliberately played off against each other by Kaczynski and Tusk in order to further divide an already polarized society,” explains Ackermann ts24.
The past eight years of PiS government under Kaczynski have led to a deregulation of the separation of powers and the rule of law. “And the democratically elected government of Donald Tusk is now having the greatest difficulty reversing the abolition of the separation of powers.” After losing power, Kaczynski is trying to continue “the fight with old means” and make the government’s life more difficult – through massive polarization and the use of all legal means.