Post by Jaga on Nov 11, 2023 7:30:17 GMT -7
interesting article after Polish election won by three opposition parties.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/10/poland-donald-tusk-democracy-election/
WARSAW — “Miracle.” That’s the word you hear repeatedly when urban, educated Poles — meaning Poles committed to mainstream European ideas of democracy, tolerance and pluralism — describe their country’s elections last month. They feel an emotion beyond joy or relief at having defeated a populist government that subverted the rule of law, traded in aggrieved nationalism and flirted with antisemitism over eight years in office.
They feel a sense of deliverance.
“The election,” Adam Szlapka, a lawmaker from the victorious Civic Coalition, told me, “was a victory over fear."
No other major country lately has managed to slip the yoke of an authoritarian regime that spent years building a matrix of dubious laws, bogus institutions and extraconstitutional procedures, all designed to create an un-pickable lock on power. The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party captured huge state-owned companies, state-controlled media, courts, prosecutors, security services, even the central bank. Yet in a result few predicted, a jaw-dropping three-quarters of Poles turned up at the polls and a convincing majority tore down what looked like the party’s indestructible monolith.
Poland, a linchpin in the West’s struggle to help Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s onslaught, can now shed its pariah status in the European Union and regain its rightful spot at the heart of the continent.
Yet Poles are also at a dangerous juncture. The new government, set to take over next month, will struggle to resurrect the rule of law and seek justice for Law and Justice’s abuses in a way that does not resemble retribution.
In my interviews in Warsaw, I heard chilling examples of Law and Justice’s pernicious excesses, in addition to its methodical takeover of state institutions whose independence is critical to democratic societies.
Prominent opposition figures and their families were viciously targeted in the pervasive government-controlled media, sometimes on account of their teenage children’s troubles and transgressions. Judges were slandered, denied promotions to higher courts or suspended for not toeing the governing party’s line. Independent-minded businessmen were jailed on trumped-up charges meant to bring them to heel.
Even more pernicious was the government’s installation of military-grade spyware on phones of prominent government critics whose information was weaponized to smear them publicly.
As in Poland’s dark communist past, party loyalty was the only assurance of avoiding trouble that could threaten your promotion, your apartment, your career — or your dignity.
No wonder many opposition leaders insist on justice. That means not only parliamentary investigative commissions — those will sprout like mushrooms in a Silesian forest — but also trials and convictions for the worst offenders. More broadly, the new government will seek new mechanisms to ensure state entities can never again be used as repressive tools by a governing party.
“People demand justice,” Radek Sikorski, a former foreign minister and prominent opposition figure, told me. “This is the No. 1 issue.”
The trick is to seek accountability that doesn’t look like payback, and to reform corrupted institutions in a way that isn’t the mirror image of Law and Justice’s authoritarian power grabs.
The man likely tasked with striking that balance is Donald Tusk, the former prime minister who returned to Polish politics in 2021, reenergized the dejected opposition and spearheaded its stunning electoral victory. Yet as he prepares to regain his old job, he will face the task of cutting a gargantuan web of Gordian knots, methodically woven by Law and Justice to seal its hold on state institutions.
The obstacles start with the nation’s judiciary, packed by Law and Justice with roughly 1,700 new judges, nearly 20 percent of the total, whose common qualification is party loyalty. They constitute a blocking force on the Supreme Court and other top tribunals, and they owe their jobs to an appointment process unconstitutionally hijacked by the party. Removing them, as some in the incoming government favor, could invalidate their past rulings; that could create judicial chaos.
Similarly, the governing party repurposed state-owned media as a gusher of insidious propaganda and used Poland’s dominant state-owned companies to improve its electoral odds. Even as gas prices rose elsewhere in Europe this year, they plummeted ahead of the balloting in Poland, courtesy of the state-controlled oil giant run by a Law and Justice ally.
In many cases, prying loose the party’s tentacles will require new laws or finding loopholes in ones devised by Law and Justice. But almost any legislation can be vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, a former Law and Justice stalwart who rarely breaks ranks with the party. Duda, whose term extends until August 2025, can impede much of the new government’s reform agenda.
“The problem is that they’re coming to power, but they will not have power,” Piotr Buras, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me.
Tusk’s task is to rehabilitate the robust democracy that was once the key to Poland’s shining reputation as a post-communist success story, without deepening divisions in an already polarized nation. If he can pull it off, that would be the real Polish miracle.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/10/poland-donald-tusk-democracy-election/
WARSAW — “Miracle.” That’s the word you hear repeatedly when urban, educated Poles — meaning Poles committed to mainstream European ideas of democracy, tolerance and pluralism — describe their country’s elections last month. They feel an emotion beyond joy or relief at having defeated a populist government that subverted the rule of law, traded in aggrieved nationalism and flirted with antisemitism over eight years in office.
They feel a sense of deliverance.
“The election,” Adam Szlapka, a lawmaker from the victorious Civic Coalition, told me, “was a victory over fear."
No other major country lately has managed to slip the yoke of an authoritarian regime that spent years building a matrix of dubious laws, bogus institutions and extraconstitutional procedures, all designed to create an un-pickable lock on power. The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party captured huge state-owned companies, state-controlled media, courts, prosecutors, security services, even the central bank. Yet in a result few predicted, a jaw-dropping three-quarters of Poles turned up at the polls and a convincing majority tore down what looked like the party’s indestructible monolith.
Poland, a linchpin in the West’s struggle to help Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s onslaught, can now shed its pariah status in the European Union and regain its rightful spot at the heart of the continent.
Yet Poles are also at a dangerous juncture. The new government, set to take over next month, will struggle to resurrect the rule of law and seek justice for Law and Justice’s abuses in a way that does not resemble retribution.
In my interviews in Warsaw, I heard chilling examples of Law and Justice’s pernicious excesses, in addition to its methodical takeover of state institutions whose independence is critical to democratic societies.
Prominent opposition figures and their families were viciously targeted in the pervasive government-controlled media, sometimes on account of their teenage children’s troubles and transgressions. Judges were slandered, denied promotions to higher courts or suspended for not toeing the governing party’s line. Independent-minded businessmen were jailed on trumped-up charges meant to bring them to heel.
Even more pernicious was the government’s installation of military-grade spyware on phones of prominent government critics whose information was weaponized to smear them publicly.
As in Poland’s dark communist past, party loyalty was the only assurance of avoiding trouble that could threaten your promotion, your apartment, your career — or your dignity.
No wonder many opposition leaders insist on justice. That means not only parliamentary investigative commissions — those will sprout like mushrooms in a Silesian forest — but also trials and convictions for the worst offenders. More broadly, the new government will seek new mechanisms to ensure state entities can never again be used as repressive tools by a governing party.
“People demand justice,” Radek Sikorski, a former foreign minister and prominent opposition figure, told me. “This is the No. 1 issue.”
The trick is to seek accountability that doesn’t look like payback, and to reform corrupted institutions in a way that isn’t the mirror image of Law and Justice’s authoritarian power grabs.
The man likely tasked with striking that balance is Donald Tusk, the former prime minister who returned to Polish politics in 2021, reenergized the dejected opposition and spearheaded its stunning electoral victory. Yet as he prepares to regain his old job, he will face the task of cutting a gargantuan web of Gordian knots, methodically woven by Law and Justice to seal its hold on state institutions.
The obstacles start with the nation’s judiciary, packed by Law and Justice with roughly 1,700 new judges, nearly 20 percent of the total, whose common qualification is party loyalty. They constitute a blocking force on the Supreme Court and other top tribunals, and they owe their jobs to an appointment process unconstitutionally hijacked by the party. Removing them, as some in the incoming government favor, could invalidate their past rulings; that could create judicial chaos.
Similarly, the governing party repurposed state-owned media as a gusher of insidious propaganda and used Poland’s dominant state-owned companies to improve its electoral odds. Even as gas prices rose elsewhere in Europe this year, they plummeted ahead of the balloting in Poland, courtesy of the state-controlled oil giant run by a Law and Justice ally.
In many cases, prying loose the party’s tentacles will require new laws or finding loopholes in ones devised by Law and Justice. But almost any legislation can be vetoed by President Andrzej Duda, a former Law and Justice stalwart who rarely breaks ranks with the party. Duda, whose term extends until August 2025, can impede much of the new government’s reform agenda.
“The problem is that they’re coming to power, but they will not have power,” Piotr Buras, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me.
Tusk’s task is to rehabilitate the robust democracy that was once the key to Poland’s shining reputation as a post-communist success story, without deepening divisions in an already polarized nation. If he can pull it off, that would be the real Polish miracle.