Poland can't calm down: The convicted former Interior Minister Kaminski wants to return to parliament – and gets into a scuffle with the parliamentary guard.
Warsaw – condemnation, hunger strike – and now fisticuffs: Poland's former interior minister Mariusz Kaminski is causing unrest again is driving his country further into national crisis. Together with his party colleague Maciej Wasik, the convicted PiS politician demanded access to parliament in Warsaw on Wednesday (February 7) and did not shy away from a scuffle with the guard.
Government crisis in Poland: Ex-Interior Minister takes on guard at Parliament
“If the speaker of the Sejm orders to kill me, will you do it too?” asked Kaminski in a war of words with the official, according to the Polish TV station TVN24 reported. There is then some pushing and shoving between the security guards and an angry crowd. Numerous videos circulating online document the incident with the Interior Minister. Kaminski declined an offer to watch the session of the Sejm, the more important of the two parliamentary chambers, from the visitors' gallery.
Convicted PiS politician has the support of President Duda
Ex-Interior Minister Kaminski and his former State Secretary Wasik were sentenced to two years in prison in December 2023 for abuse of office. Poland's President Andrzej Duda pardoned the two after an initial trial in 2015. However, the Supreme Court declared this pardon to be unlawful.
After being sentenced again, the two politicians were finally arrested on January 9th and taken to prison after initially seeking protection in the presidential palace. During his short-term imprisonment, Kaminski then went on hunger strike. Duda said at the time that he was deeply shocked by “the zeal and brutality” shown by the authorities in capturing the two politicians. “When I hear that this case is not supposed to be political, I have to laugh,” he was quoted as saying Deutschlandfunk. In return, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Polish President Lech Walesa demanded legal consequences for Duda because he had helped criminals.
Despite the conviction, the two politicians do not want to give up. They had already announced in advance of Wednesday's meeting that they wanted to gain access to the parliament building. But several independent legal experts have come to the conclusion that the politicians would have automatically lost their parliamentary mandate with the final verdict and that the president's pardon does not change that. This view is also held by Parliament Speaker Szymon Holownia from the Polska 2050 party.
State crisis surrounding the government in Poland: Donald Tusk announces further investigation
According to the Polish Constitution – Article 99, paragraph 3 – no one “who has been sentenced to imprisonment for a crime committed intentionally” may be elected to the Sejm or Senate. The PiS is nevertheless demanding back the parliamentary mandates for Kaminski and Wasik. The dispute over this has become a central point in the dispute between Prime Minister Donald Tusk's center-left coalition and the PiS with its ally Duda in recent weeks.
But Tusk is not willing to back down. The head of government recently announced that there should be further prosecutions against the two convicted politicians. “The case of Messrs. Kaminski and Wasik is not over, it has just begun.” Accordingly, the term of office of the past eight years should also be examined. (jkf/with material from dpa)
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