Just over a month in the past, an electoral coalition led by Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council, took energy in Poland – a lot to the delight of the EU institution.
Since then, Tusk’s coalition authorities has been busily taking revenge on its political opponents and asserting its influence over state-owned media. And it has been doing so with no regard for the rule of regulation or for democratic norms. Had the Law and Justice Party (PiS), the populist get together that ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, performed solely a fraction of what Tusk’s authorities is now doing, Western political and media elites would have been outraged.
Tusk’s first act was to deprive PiS of the right to elect the vice-speaker for each homes of the brand new parliament. This cuts towards all precedent. It has lengthy been accepted in Polish political tradition that the biggest opposition get together successfully chooses the vice-speaker – and PiS is not simply the biggest opposition get together, it’s additionally the biggest get together full cease, having gained 36 per cent of the votes on the final election. But Tusk’s cobbled collectively coalition has rejected Elżbieta Witek, PiS’s nomination for vice-speaker, on the absurd grounds that her nomination wouldn’t ‘meet democratic standards’.
That was simply the beginning of the coalition’s assault on democratic norms. In December, simply a few days after being named prime minister, Tusk announced the takeover of Poland’s public media. He shut down state broadcaster TVP Media and dismissed its administration. All this was justified within the title of restoring so-called impartiality.
Under Polish regulation, the federal government can solely appoint the administration of state media with the consent of two constitutional our bodies, the National Broadcasting Council and the National Media Council. Given these our bodies’ members have been elected underneath a PiS authorities and nonetheless have prolonged phrases in workplace left to serve, they might have seemingly opposed Tusk’s plans. His resolution? He liquidated each our bodies. The police have been then summoned to block the sacked officers from coming into the constructing.
Most of Poland checked out this authoritarian spectacle, staged simply earlier than Christmas, with a combination of disbelief and disgust. Yes, Polish political events and governments have lengthy exerted affect over public broadcasters. But by no means have they performed so with fairly as a lot brute pressure as Tusk’s coalition has performed, violating constitutional and democratic norms within the course of.
The new authorities is additionally wanting to management the judiciary. To this finish, it has crammed the National Council of the Judiciary – a constitutional physique overseeing Polish judges – with its personal MPs. When PiS did one thing comparable, the EU was up in arms, claiming that PiS was politicising the judiciary. Brussels even cited this as a justification for imposing sanctions on Poland and freezing a few of Poland’s EU funding. But now Tusk’s authorities is doing precisely the identical factor, the EU is advantageous with it. The European Commission has even announced that the primary €5 billion of beforehand sanctioned funds can be launched to Poland by the top of 2024, as the brand new authorities ‘works to restore rule of law’.
Over the previous decade or so, PiS’s critics repeatedly appealed to the structure and the ‘rule of law’. But now that Tusk’s coalition authorities is trampling over each, they’ve gone very quiet.
Some supporters of the federal government, apprehensive by what they’re now seeing, hope all of this can finally cross. That this is simply a brief interval of violent however obligatory adjustment after years of PiS rule. But what if it is not? What if Tusk and his buddies proceed to violate constitutional and democratic norms?
While in energy, PiS had highly effective opponents. At residence, it confronted a wealthy, non-public media and an influential opinion-forming elite. And it was continually within the crosshairs of the European Union and of the liberal media overseas. They all used their immense energy and affect to oppose virtually every little thing PiS did. Paradoxically, this served the PiS authorities properly. It made it stand upright. It saved a test on any authoritarian tendencies the get together may need had.
Tusk’s authorities is not being scrutinised on this approach. There are few highly effective forces domestically or internationally calling out the brand new authorities’s democratic backsliding – all as a result of the political and media institution views Tusk as considered one of their very own. Politico even accorded him the accolade of ‘the most influential person in Europe’.
As it stands, the ‘most influential person in Europe’ is turning into considered one of its most harmful. His authorities can take over Polish media, override the structure and overturn democracy. And not considered one of his buddies in excessive locations is batting a lot as an eyelid.
Rafał Woś is a Polish journalist and commentator.
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