{"id":14764,"date":"2024-01-28T12:54:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T12:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/28\/polands-new-leader-is-bent-on-restoring-democracy-even-if-it-means-war-with-his-populist-rivals\/"},"modified":"2024-01-28T12:54:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T12:54:40","slug":"polands-new-leader-is-bent-on-restoring-democracy-even-if-it-means-war-with-his-populist-rivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/28\/polands-new-leader-is-bent-on-restoring-democracy-even-if-it-means-war-with-his-populist-rivals\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s new leader is bent on restoring democracy \u2013 even if it means war with his populist rivals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When Donald Tusk first won power in Poland in 2007, the country\u2019s media coined a tender moniker to describe his approach towards his political rivals: the \u201cpolitics of love.\u201d <\/p>\n

His second stint as the country\u2019s prime minister is proving far less amorous. <\/p>\n

The returning veteran of Polish centrism, who formed a coalition government after an impressive election result last year, has surprised critics and even many supporters with a confrontational approach towards Law and Justice (PiS), the populist group he defeated. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis attitude (in 2007) was extremely conciliatory towards the defeated enemy. I think he later regretted that,\u201d said Jacek Kucharczyk, the president of the Warsaw-based Institute of Public Affairs think tank. <\/p>\n

This time, Tusk has moved \u201cas quickly and decisively as possible\u201d in tackling the gargantuan task of undoing PiS\u2019 illiberal and far-reaching changes to the Polish state \u2013 an agenda he and his supporters say will restore Poland\u2019s democratic institutions. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to do the most difficult \u2013 politically, legally \u2013 things first, in order to clean the slate,\u201d Kucharczyk said. <\/p>\n

But cleaning the slate is painful business, and Tusk\u2019s early moves as prime minister have caused fissures in Polish society to explode into outright hostility. <\/p>\n

The country\u2019s public television channel, TVP, which essentially became a mouthpiece for the previous government, has been ripped off the air. Two senior ex-ministers in PiS governments have been arrested inside the Presidential Palace. And those on the right of Polish politics have taken to the streets in an effort to drum up pressure on the new leader. <\/p>\n

It has delighted many of those who voted for Tusk\u2019s alliance of parties, and satisfied a blood lust among much of Poland\u2019s population after eight divisive years of PiS rule. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of justice being seen to be done,\u201d said Stanley Bill, a professor of Polish Studies at the University of Cambridge. <\/p>\n

But there are also concerns too that Tusk is doing too much, too fast. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo plan has been presented for how the institutions will be restored in the medium or long term,\u201d Bill argued. \u201cIt\u2019s been done in a hurry.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in an ad hoc state of exception,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing an escalation of a genuine political and legal crisis in Poland.\u201d <\/p>\n

An aggressive first move<\/h2>\n

The central question facing Tusk is how to restore the independence of Poland\u2019s media and judiciary, which has been degraded by eight years of authoritarian PiS reforms. <\/p>\n

It is a question with no right answer. PiS protected its changes to the state by stuffing legal and decision-making bodies with loyalists, and the PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda is <\/strong>expected to block legislative attempts to undo those reforms. <\/p>\n

\u201c(PiS\u2019s) philosophy was to create as much legal ambiguity as possible,\u201d explained Kucharczyk. <\/p>\n

But Tusk \u2013 a politician with a reputation for pragmatism and restraint \u2013 showed his intentions within days of taking office. <\/p>\n

He dismissed the heads of public broadcaster TVP, replacing them with new executives, in an effort to rapidly remove the pro-PiS bias that had turned the national broadcaster into a partisan outlet. <\/p>\n

That move outraged PiS, causing a weeks-long sit-in protest inside TVP\u2019s headquarters and forcing its news channel off the air over Christmas. A subsequent spat with Duda over funding for the broadcaster ended with the government putting it into liquidation, alongside news agency PAP. <\/p>\n

But it fulfilled a promise Tusk made during the election to remove PiS\u2019s influence on the channel \u201cin 24 hours.\u201d And it brought relief to millions of voters \u2013 including even some PiS supporters \u2013 who had become increasingly embarrassed and tired of the broadcaster\u2019s slant. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt became symbolic of the excesses of the PiS government,\u201d Bill said of TVP\u2019s transformation into a Hungarian-style state-captured medium. \u201cEven his more moderate voters didn\u2019t want to watch the propaganda on TVP for a day longer.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who support this government considered the status quo in public media as not only a political scandal, but a moral scandal,\u201d Kucharczyk added. \u201c(They) are relieved that the people who ran the media are gone, and they\u2019re thankful that this happened so quickly\u2026 many people didn\u2019t think this would be possible.\u201d <\/p>\n

There was a personal motive for Tusk, too. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t be in the situation that Tusk has been in for eight years \u2013 totally demonized, and presented as the root of all evil \u2013 and not have it affect you,\u201d Bill said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe political and personal motives here are very strongly connected,\u201d added Kucharczyk. <\/p>\n

A trade-off between two evils<\/h2>\n

Tusk fanned the flames of Poland\u2019s societal divide with his early moves on public television \u2013 an \u201cegg-breaking\u201d approach to restoring democracy that critics say mirrors the methods of his populist rivals. <\/p>\n

His initial move to dismiss the PiS-appointed executives of TVP was ruled unlawful by the PiS-filled Constitutional Tribunal \u2013 a body whose authority the government dismisses \u2013 and it caused an early first standoff with Duda. <\/p>\n

Then, soon after, Polish <\/strong>police dramatically entered the Presidential Palace to arrest on abuse of power charges two PiS politicians who had seemingly taken refuge in Duda\u2019s place of work. Duda and PiS had maintained they were legally pardoned years ago, a stance the courts disagreed with, and the party has since made the two politicians martyrs of their wounded populist movement. Duda issued a second pardon on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The timing of the saga coincidentally fell in Tusk\u2019s first weeks, and in the wake of the clash over TVP, intensifying the dogfight between Tusk and his predecessors in power. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust as the PiS occupation of Poland ended, the PiS occupation of state offices will end,\u201d Tusk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week, in a comment indicative of his pugnacious attitude towards the party\u2019s leaders. \u201cThe occupiers\u2019 reputation will stay with them for a long time.\u201d <\/p>\n

His moves have heightened a tense political environment inside Poland, which had been simmering since long before October\u2019s election and increased during a drawn-out transfer of power. <\/p>\n

Central to the problem is that PiS built many of its reforms into law, and created a sympathetic legal apparatus to further protect its changes. <\/p>\n

The result is that Poles effectively live in two separate realities depending on their political leanings, with each universe containing courts and institutions that question the authority of the other. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely difficult to find any way to undo (PiS reforms), without resorting to the same sorts of decisionist, legally dubious means that PiS used to capture the institutions in the first place,\u201d Bill argued. <\/p>\n

To force changes at TVP, for example, Tusk had to bypass the National Media Council \u2013 a body that PiS created in 2016 to oversee public media, and promptly filled with loyalists. The agency is widely dismissed as an effort by PiS to cement its influence over public media while creating the semblance of independence in how it is governed; but its creation was nonetheless codified in law, so to dismantle it would require Duda\u2019s sign-off. <\/p>\n

But Bill added that Tusk\u2019s dilemma is \u201ca tradeoff between different evils.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe alternative would have been to work more slowly, more deliberately, which could take years,\u201d he said. \u201cTaking the more delicate approach (would) mean, in practice, having to leave degenerated, captured institutions as they are for some period of time.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018No clear plan for what\u2019s next\u2019<\/h2>\n

Early signs suggest Poles have not been turned off by Tusk\u2019s politically aggressive first weeks. <\/p>\n

Opinion polls indicate his coalition would win another election with a slightly increased vote share. PiS\u2019 share of the vote has meanwhile slumped amid the party\u2019s angry backlash to Tusk\u2019s moves, with less than a third of Poles supporting the group in most surveys. <\/p>\n

And his appointment has been celebrated in Brussels. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at a joint news conference with Tusk last month: \u201cI welcome your commitment to put the rule of law at the top of your government\u2019s agenda\u2026 we will need to make up for lost time.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the road ahead could be difficult to navigate. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no clear plan for what happens next,\u201d Bill said. He pointed to the liquidation of TVP as a short-term measure; currently, Tusk\u2019s re-capturing of public media is being debated in duelling courts, neither of which accepts the authority of the other. <\/p>\n

Tusk enjoys universal support across his coalition for his mission to \u201cde-PiSify\u201d Poland. But he must also turn soon to his own agenda \u2013 and he will hope that such moves do not become entangled with or complicated by the effects of his fight with the former ruling party. <\/p>\n

Tusk recently reiterated a campaign promise to loosen Poland\u2019s abortion rules, which were changed by PiS and currently make the procedure virtually impossible to access. He has been pushed to make progress on that issue by the left-wing party in his alliance, but he will need also to keep more conservative, center-right lawmakers onside. <\/p>\n

And on the European stage, Tusk will hope to soon unfreeze funds for Poland that were blocked by the European Union over PiS\u2019 degradation of the rule of law. <\/p>\n

It is a hefty in-tray, and his every move will continue to be criticized by the opposition, who remain a formidable force even without the control of the national broadcaster. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the unifying forces of PiS supporters is distrust, or even hatred, of Donald Tusk,\u201d Kucharczyk said. \u201cThat hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d <\/p>\n

The politics of love feel like a relic from a different world. And Tusk\u2019s gameplan makes clear that things will get messier before they get better. <\/p>\n

Nonetheless, after eight years of populist rule that hardened the battle lines of Polish politics, much of the public is spoiling for a fight. <\/p>\n

Tusk\u2019s approach \u201ccan only further damage Poland\u2019s institutions, legal order, and perhaps most importantly the set of conventions in which those institutions are practiced,\u201d Bill said. \u201c(But) from a political point of view, it\u2019s simple: this is what the voters want.\u201d <\/p>\n

\ufeffCorrection: This story has been updated to reflect that the two PiS politicians were charged with abuse of power.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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