Not a day in Polish politics passes silently. Anyone who expected the change of power to go smoothly will be disappointed. After Prime Minister Donald Tusk won the elections in mid-October against the radical right PiS party, the fight for power really began. And not just with words.
In the days before Christmas, Tusk put the public channel TVP on black for a while. The leadership was summarily dismissed at that time and pro-Pis presenters were replaced by new ones.
In response, PiS leader Jarowslaw Kaczynski occupied the TV station building. While the change of power at TVP is still ongoing, two PiS politicians were arrested this week. They had already been convicted in 2015 of abuse of power but were protected for years thanks to a presidential pardon. There too, Kaczynski came into the picture again: he reported at the prison gates to free his two fellow party members. In vain.
Tens of thousands of PiS supporters marched in Warsaw on Thursday to demonstrate against the reform of the public broadcaster. And that while Tusk has only been in power for a month. The arrest of the two MPs and the reforms at TVP are just the beginning of a larger struggle to reverse eight years of PiS policies and restore the rule of law. The latter is necessary to release tens of billions of euros from the European Union, which were frozen to punish the previous government.
Media
During a live broadcast, TVP presenter Adrian Borecki heard in his earpiece that he had to stop his agro news broadcast. It was December 20, a week after Tusk’s government was installed. “This has never happened before in Polish history,” he said just before walking out of the studio. The screen went black for a moment, after which a nature documentary was broadcast.
Behind the scenes, the management of TVP, PAP news agency and Polskie Radio were dismissed at the same time. The directors were replaced, old presenters disappeared from the picture and a day later a new newscast was broadcast with new presenters.
For years, TVP was known as the mouthpiece of the PiS government. With harsh attacks on then opposition leader Tusk and ominous images of boat people and migrants, the TV channel inspired fear and hatred for years. PiS’s policy was praised to the skies. “We made worse propaganda than under communism,” admitted a TVP program maker after the elections lost by PiS. That propaganda had an effect on society; during the election campaign, several politicians were physically attacked.
The question is whether Tusk did the right thing in transforming TVPiS – as the channel is popularly known – so quickly and rigorously. Critics say that Tusk is now doing what PiS did eight years ago when it came to power: replacing the TVP leadership outside the law with its own people. Human rights NGO Helsinki Committee has “serious legal doubts” because the takeover would violate the constitution and European standards.
PiS will not let TVP be taken away easily. After Kaczynski tried to occupy the building together with other PiS politicians, President Andrzej Duda – a PiS sympathizer – vetoed the new government’s budget due to changes in the public media. Duda thus made it more difficult for the government to come up with a balanced budget on time. In response, the media minister, as a shareholder of TVP, decided to place the channel under a kind of receivership in order to continue with the reorganization.
TVP is now broadcasting the news again. But part of the broadcaster is still controlled by PiS sympathizers. The channel’s X account is in their hands, where they scream bloody murder about the reforms. Other PiS sympathizers from TVP left for TV Republika, a commercial channel, which immediately became controversial when commentators on the channel suggested sending future migrants to Auschwitz. PiS may have lost the public broadcaster, but they have not lost their strong language.
Jurisdiction
The chaotic reforms of the public channel were overshadowed last week by the news of the arrest of the two PiS politicians. These are parliamentarians Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik. In 2015, they were convicted of, among other things, eavesdropping on a political opponent during the first PiS government (2005-2007). They were pardoned by President Duda, allowing them to work as minister and state secretary respectively in the last PiS cabinet. In December, a court ruled that the pardon was not legitimate and an arrest warrant was issued.
That arrest was like everything is now in Poland: chaotic. The two politicians locked themselves in the presidential palace, hoping he would offer them protection. As soon as Duda left the palace for an out-of-town appointment, police swooped in and arrested the duo. The two former ministers have now gone on hunger strike in prison. President Duda announced on Thursday that he would again pardon the two politicians.
It is expected that many more lawsuits will follow about abuse of power and corruption at PiS. That won’t be easy. The judiciary in Poland has two faces. On one side are lawyers from departments and committees appointed by PiS. These PiS sympathizers and so-called ‘neo-judges’ have not been lawfully elected, according to several EU lawyers. Yet they make statements every day, such as in recent weeks about what they say is the illegal takeover of TVP and the unlawful arrest of the two PiS ministers.
On the other hand, there are the judges who were there before PiS came back to power in 2015. Both camps work under different departments at the same institutions, which leads to them making statements about and against each other. This way, politicians can argue with contradictory verdicts. Polish newspapers have to fill pages every day to make it all understandable to readers.
It is up to Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar, former ombudsman, to reform the judiciary. He has announced that he will take his time and do it carefully; he knows he cannot restore the rule of law by violating it himself. The reforms require new legislation, but there too he will encounter President Duda with his veto power. His term of office expires in 2025.
The chairman of the Sejm, the Polish lower house, decided this week to suspend all meetings due to all the commotion.
Abortion, gay marriage
Many more upheavals will follow in the coming weeks, as top people at state-owned companies and cultural and government institutions will be replaced. Tusk’s coalition parties agree on these positions and the reforms in the public media and the judiciary. The government will also not fiddle with child benefits and extra pension benefits for the time being – political promises with which PiS previously won elections. In addition, Tusk has promised to immediately increase teacher salaries by 30 percent.
But after this chaotic honeymoon, his government will also have to make decisions on more sensitive issues, such as weakening the abortion ban and gay marriage. The coalition consists of an ideological range of parties, from the extreme left to the conservative right. Not only PiS will attack the government on these issues, the coalition parties will also fight hard among themselves.
Moreover, Tusk must quickly fulfill its high expectations, because local elections will take place in April. If Tusk really wants to make a difference, his government must also win the presidential elections in 2025 and not alienate his voters. Tusk himself is not complaining: “Did anyone really think this job would be light, easy and enjoyable? No, it will be heavy, difficult and unpleasant for a while,” he wrote onX.
In any case, all the chaos has made politics sexy again in Poland. The Sejm’s YouTube channel is immensely popular in Poland. The inauguration of the Tusk cabinet was already watched by four million people in cinemas and online. And that popularity continues: every day, hundreds of thousands of people watch the hours-long debates and committee meetings that still take place. Sejmflix, it’s already been mentioned. Current Polish politics may also be more exciting than the average series on Netflix.