{"id":83991,"date":"2023-12-06T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T19:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=83991"},"modified":"2023-12-05T18:24:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T07:24:00","slug":"polands-democratic-rebirth-pains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/polands-democratic-rebirth-pains\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s democratic rebirth pains"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In October, Polish voters demonstrated that even extremely unequal elections against authoritarian incumbents can be won. The opposition\u2019s victory<\/a>, and the country\u2019s subsequent re-democratisation, may hold useful lessons for likeminded forces in Hungary, Turkey, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

In Poland, the defeated populist leader<\/a>, Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski of Law and Justice (PiS), is relearning the rules of democracy the hard way in the newly elected parliament<\/a>. For the past eight years, he did not entertain questions in the Sejm (the lower house of parliament) or elsewhere, nor did he engage with any media outlet that PiS did not control. The speaker of the Sejm, El\u017cbieta Witek, politely followed his instructions and even reversed<\/a> votes that PiS had lost. The opposition was allowed only 30 seconds<\/a> of questions, and Witek frequently fined opposition deputies and turned off their microphones.<\/p>\n

Kaczy\u0144ski would take the rostrum whenever he wanted, using it as a perch from which to insult opposition politicians, whom he smeared as \u2018treacherous murderers.\u2019 He surrounded himself with security details, and had the Sejm fenced off with barriers and police\u2014an absurd display in a nominally democratic country. Press passes for journalists covering parliament were strictly limited<\/a>, and Kaczy\u0144ski always entered through the speaker\u2019s private entrance.<\/p>\n

In the recent election campaign, Kaczy\u0144ski was so sure of himself that he relied solely on aggressive anti-EU rhetoric to mobilize the PiS base. He has long taken a page from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s playbook. As Orb\u00e1n said<\/a> at a recent rally, \u2018Today, things pop up that remind us of Soviet times. \u2026 Fortunately, Brussels is not Moscow. Moscow was a tragedy. Brussels is just a bad contemporary parody \u2026 We had to dance to the tune that Moscow whistled, Brussels whistles, too, but we dance as we want to, and if we don\u2019t want to, then we don\u2019t dance.\u2019<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Kaczy\u0144ski deployed the Orb\u00e1nian tactic of announcing a referendum designed<\/a> to scare Poles with the prospect that the country would soon be flooded with refugees.<\/p>\n

But it didn\u2019t work, and since the new Sejm convened<\/a> on November 13, Kaczy\u0144ski has appeared completely lost. For the first time, he had to enter through the main entrance with everyone else. When reporters pressed him with questions, he lashed out<\/a>, screaming: \u2018How much arrogance, such incredible rudeness, such German rudeness on the part of the Civic Platform.\u2019 He then described Donald Tusk<\/a>, the likely next prime minister, as a \u2018lout.\u2019<\/p>\n

A half-hour later, he had to stand by and watch as the new parliamentary majority elected<\/a> Szymon Ho\u0142ownia, of the Poland 2050 party, to replace Witek as speaker. She then lost a vote<\/a> to serve as a deputy speaker owing to all her previous violations of parliamentary rules. Kaczy\u0144ski and his PiS colleagues were completely unprepared for this. But they could hardly blame anyone: they had voted against all the other parties\u2019 candidates (each party is granted one deputy in the Sejm presidium, though the PiS government did not adhere to this rule).<\/p>\n

As of this writing, the seat for PiS\u2019s deputy speaker remains vacant<\/a>. The party has decided not to field any other candidates, thus ceding any influence over the Sejm\u2019s deliberations. Moreover, something similar occurred in the Senate, where PiS\u2019s deputy speaker candidate was also rejected<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During these proceedings, there was a symbolically poignant moment when Kaczy\u0144ski tried to take the rostrum but was denied by the new speaker\u2014not out of spite but because Ho\u0142ownia actually follows the parliamentary rules of procedure. Meanwhile, out on the street, ordinary Polish citizens dismantled the barriers around parliament and the Constitutional Court. Police officers who had hitherto been subservient to PiS did not stop them.<\/p>\n

Some might conclude that Kaczy\u0144ski, who increasingly appears old and ailing, has simply become confused. But it is more likely that he has intentionally adopted a strategy of behaving outrageously to see which PiS members break ranks. Either way, the menacing strongman, now impotent, has become desperate and ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, Kaczy\u0144ski now must seek support from President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS member whom he brushed aside for years. Although Duda has shown no independence or ability to build a political base, he also knows that there will be no cushy sinecure awaiting him in the West after he leaves office. He therefore is launching his own bid for leadership on the Polish right, where his main competitor is Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.<\/p>\n

Thus, when Duda gave PiS the first attempt to form a new government<\/a>, he saddled Morawiecki with the impossible task<\/a> of creating a majority coalition where none exists. When his time is up after 28 days<\/a>, the coalition agreement<\/a> between Tusk\u2019s Civic Platform, Ho\u0142ownia\u2019s Poland 2050, the Polish People\u2019s Party, and The Left<\/a> will take effect. If there was any remaining doubt about who had truly won the election in October, it was put to rest when Ho\u0142ownia soundly defeated Witek in the speaker race.<\/p>\n

Kaczy\u0144ski and his party have not only been lying to the Polish people. They also apparently have been lying to themselves. While they have been left reeling from the return of democracy, the rest of us can take inspiration from their defeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October, Polish voters demonstrated that even extremely unequal elections against authoritarian incumbents can be won. The opposition\u2019s victory, and the country\u2019s subsequent re-democratisation, may hold useful lessons for likeminded forces in Hungary, Turkey, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":646,"featured_media":83996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,959,2061,955],"class_list":["post-83991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-democracy","tag-eu","tag-pluralistic-democracy","tag-poland"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPoland\u2019s democratic rebirth pains | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/polands-democratic-rebirth-pains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poland\u2019s democratic rebirth pains | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In October, Polish voters demonstrated that even extremely unequal elections against authoritarian incumbents can be won. 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