Today, less than a year after the October 15 elections, PiS itself is assuming the role of the Committee for the Defence of Democracy, taking the well-known rhetoric of the KOD protests to absurd levels. This was perfectly demonstrated by the “Pathological Stop” protest organised by the party on Saturday in front of the Ministry of Justice.
Kaczyński is once again making the most serious accusations without any foundation
The protest, after singing the anthem, was opened with speeches by Jarosław Kaczyński. The PiS leader did not even try to criticize the government in any meaningful way; his speech had a different goal: an attempt to completely delegitimize Tusk’s power using the most serious accusations, completely unsupported by facts.
Kaczyński began with the case of Father Olszewski, a priest arrested in connection with the Justice Fund abuse case. The PiS leader presented the priest, who, according to the prosecutor’s office, could have participated in the embezzlement of large amounts of public money from the Justice Fund, as a victim of persecution by the government that is fighting against the Church. Kaczyński thundered that the priest was arrested on Holy Thursday – in the Catholic Church it is the feast of the priesthood – which should be a signal to the entire Church and its faithful.
Kaczyński also repeated the claim that the priest was tortured in custody. He stressed that he was not exaggerating or metaphorically saying that what the priest experienced “is in line with the definitions of torture that have been adopted in recent decades.” In the period 2015-23, PiS constantly attacked the opposition for “informing about Poland” and for weakening our country’s position in the world by speaking publicly about the crisis of the rule of law, for example. Today, Kaczyński, without presenting any evidence, makes accusations against the government that disqualify it from the community of democratic countries – because the use of torture against its own citizens is something that rightly excludes it from it. Fortunately for Poland, Kaczyński’s international credibility is so low that such accusations will mainly target PiS’s partners from fringe radical-right parties in Europe.
The PiS chairman also accused the prosecutor’s office of giving Paweł Rubcow – a Russian spy operating in Poland – access to secret information. The prosecutor’s office has long denied this, explaining that, according to the law, Rubtsov only had access to information collected about his activities. Kaczyński, without presenting any evidence to the contrary, made a very serious accusation, undermining trust not only in Tusk, but also in the prosecutor’s office and services, which proves the lack of responsibility for the state of the most important opposition politician – and this can be expected especially at a time when the international environment is so tense around Poland.
This is already a dictatorship!
Furthermore, Kaczyński accused Tusk of wanting to destroy religion, culture and education, of planning to “pacify all resistance” to government policy and, ultimately, of “liquidating the Polish state”, of course, on Germany’s orders. Making similar accusations, the PiS leader used numerous comparisons with the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, the period of “consolidation of people’s power” and Stalinist terror targeting society. Listening to the PiS leader, one might get the impression that Tusk governs Poland today basically like Stalin, or at least like the Polish Stalinists, only that, unlike the latter, he follows orders from Moscow rather than Berlin.
Subsequent speakers used similar metaphors. In his speech, MEP Dominik Tarczyński painted a picture: today’s PiS as the “third generation of the Home Army” and the heirs of Solidarity, and on the other side the “Tusk regime”, most likely the heirs of those who physically fought the Home Army personnel after the war. Jan Majchrowski, a former new Supreme Court justice, stated that “Donald Tusk liquidated the Third Polish Republic and replaced it with a dictatorship.”
After the protest ended, the police stopped the car in which President Kaczyński was driving because the windows of the limousine were too dark – the driver was fined. Telewizja Republika presented these actions of the traffic police as evidence of the “persecution” of the opposition by the “Tusk regime”, although Kaczyński changed to another car and calmly drove to where he planned to go.
The message about the “Tusk dictatorship”, the comparisons with Stalinism or the incitement to panic over the fine for Kaczyński’s driver will only reach the most hardcore PiS electorate. For all other voters, including those whom PiS could potentially win, such a message will be obsessive, incomprehensible, exaggerated and discouraging on the part of the party.
The PiS candidate will not win the elections this way
The march can hardly be considered a success. The turnout, even among carefully selected Telewizja Republika staff, did not seem impressive. The PiS protest took place at a time when south-west Poland was facing the risk of the worst flooding since 1997, and in all media except those closest to PiS, preparations to combat the element overshadowed the issue of the protest in front of the Ministry of Justice. The contrast between the government’s fight against the element and PiS’s cries of “dictatorship” did not work to the advantage of the largest opposition party.
The march could have mobilized and hardened the hard-core electorate, but this electorate will not be enough for PiS to win the presidential election – and its defeat will only deepen the crisis and centrifugal tendencies in the party. Zbigniew Bogucki, mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, did not hold back on Saturday when he shouted “Donek, go to Berlin!”
During the protest, announcements were made about collecting signatures for a referendum on refugee resettlement and building an “electoral control movement”, but today these issues only inflame the hard-core United Right electorate. There is currently no offer for any other party from PiS – the one that appeared at the Ministry of Justice today.
