Maria and Paweł are angry. They drove four hours from their hometown of Wroclaw to Warsaw to take part in a large demonstration by the right-wing opposition. But now the city buses in Warsaw are being rerouted. “These bastards,” Maria complains, and she suspects that the buses are being diverted to prevent demonstrators from getting to the parliament building. “Does the tram go there too?” she asks.
The couple in their 50s came to demonstrate against the new center-left government, which ousted the national conservative PiS from government in December. “They’re just taking it too far,” says the woman. So she and her husband followed PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński's call to protest with a “March of Free Poles” on Thursday evening.
What was the main motive that brought you here? Maria thinks for a moment and then says: “Freedom.” Short pause. “The independence of Poland.” She doesn’t mind commenting for a German newspaper. “Believe me, I know a lot of people in Germany. My brother-in-law is German. But I don't want my country to be ruled from outside.” She thinks Berlin is assuming too much influence over Poland and Europe. Paweł interjects: “The EU is coming to an end. They (Western Europeans) sit there, stop having children and believe that migration will solve their demographic problems. All I can say is: without me. And our new government now wants us to raise our children progressively. But we want to raise them traditionally. Is there still room for us in Poland?”
Morawiecki wants to replace Kaczyński as PiS leader
Opposition supporters have come to the capital from all over the country, according to the liberal-governed Warsaw City Hall 35,000, the organizers say, clearly exaggerated, up to 300,000. The demonstrators' posters and caricatures were primarily directed against the new head of government, Donald Tusk, who serves as a hate figure for the right. Tusk, for his part, has called for a rally in his hometown of Gdansk on Saturday.
Opposition leader Kaczyński used his appearance at the parliament building to further sharpen his tone towards the EU and Germany. The “criminal and unworkable idea” of even closer integration of the community will plunge the peoples of Europe into a “major crisis”. “We defend the peoples of Europe from this misfortune, because German imperialism is back.” He also claimed that the new government wants to introduce the euro in Poland, which would benefit Germany and France but plunge his country into dependence. Mateusz Morawiecki, PiS Prime Minister until the fall, also spoke at the rally. The former banker announced in an interview on Friday that he would one day apply to succeed Kaczyński as party leader.
While the rallies were underway, the heated dispute over the arrest of two PiS politicians took a surprising turn. The Interior Minister of the previous government, Mariusz Kamiński, was arrested in the presidential palace on Tuesday, as was his deputy Maciej Wąsik; They were sentenced to prison in 2015 for abuse of authority in previous offices, but PiS-affiliated President Andrzej Duda quickly pardoned them in a legally dubious decision. So far, those arrested have taken the position that the pardons at the time were effective and that the arrests were therefore a violation of the law. On Thursday evening, however, Duda decided to initiate a second pardon procedure.
However, the new Minister of Justice and Attorney General Adam Bodnar has to play a role in this. In his announcement, Duda Duda asked him to suspend the pre-trial detention of Kamiński and Wąsik until the pardon process has been completed.
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