Alarm bells went off at the headquarters of the Law and Justice Party (PiS). Polls show that voting intentions are stagnant and do not give a majority to the populist and ultra-conservative party as parliamentary elections approach and Poles took to the streets en masse to defend democratic values at the beginning of the month. Considered the most powerful man in the country, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski responded by returning to the executive branch.
At a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, the head of state Andrzej Duda appointed Kaczynski as the sole deputy prime minister, a post hitherto held by four rulers, who remain with their respective directories. Duda, who left PiS when he assumed the presidency, did not hide his political closeness, thanking Kaczynski for returning in “difficult and dynamic times”. In short, a “fully justified and necessary decision”.
In practice, Lech’s brother – the country’s president who died in a plane crash in 2010 – has been the country’s leader since 2015, the year his party came to power. Since then, Jaroslaw has ruled in the shadows, with Warsaw in constant conflict with European institutions due to reforms that undermine the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press and rights, freedoms and guarantees. In addition to being eurosceptic and nationalist, Kaczynski has an apocalyptic speech about the opposition and Germany.
In a text of his published in the Gazette Poland last month, the 74-year-old said the opposition’s victory in elections scheduled for October would mean “the end of Poland” over a perceived alliance with Germans. “The European mainstream of the liberal left dreams of destroying the old world, including our collective identity and memory, and forging a new human being and a new society. The Republic cannot allow the patriotic camp to lose this election. The dominance of the opposition is total can only mean one thing: the end of Poland,” he wrote.
Kaczynski was deputy prime minister between October 2020 and June 2022, then with the security portfolio. It was an outgoing State Heritage Minister and Deputy Minister Jacek Sasin who explained the change: “Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s role will be different from the one he played last time. From now on he will coordinate all government work.”
According to observers interviewed by AFP, Kaczynski’s return is aimed at stabilizing a government marred by internal dissent and preparing conservatives for elections. This change of government comes just days after the PiS campaign manager stepped down and was replaced by one of Kaczynski’s allies, MEP Joachim Brudzinski.
The average of the polls shows that PiS remains in first place (34.1%), but the main opposition party, Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform, is gaining ground, by more than three percentage points (29.7%). In this scenario, PiS would only achieve a majority in a coalition with the far-right Confederation Party.
Source: DN
