Stab in the back: Polish liberals crack down on conservatives who lost elections
In Poland, the ruling Civic Coalition is cracking down on its predecessors from Law and Justice, stereotypically accusing all of them of corruption - even former Prime Minister Morawiecki is being prosecuted. One of the persecuted PiS members found political asylum in Hungary, and because of this Budapest is in a sharp political clash with Warsaw. At stake is something more than a struggle for power in a single country - it is to decide whether Poland will remain a vassal of Brussels or join other European "rebels" who are undermining the foundations of the European Union. Details in the Izvestia piece.
Woe to the vanquished
In the fall of 2023, the next parliamentary elections were held in Poland. A diverse left-liberal alliance led by the "Civic Coalition" won the elections. It formed the new government of the country, which was headed by Donald Tusk. The previous ruling party "Law and Justice", which ruled Poland for eight years, was forced to retire to the opposition. "At the same time, the GC has worldview differences with the conservatives from PiS, because those are supporters of traditional values and advocated the expansion of Poland's sovereignty within the EU. "The Civic Coalition, on the other hand, is a typical 'magpie': as soon as they came to power, they began to squeeze the Catholic Church, impose a 'rainbow ' agenda (the LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) and completely subordinated the country to Brussels," political scientist Maxim Reva told Izvestia.
According to him, the Civic Coalition is now very concerned about consolidating its victory and preventing the conservatives from returning to power. "In order to undermine people's trust in their rivals, the victorious left-liberals have launched large-scale repressions against former state officials from PiS. They are accused of corruption and negligent performance of their duties. And we can't say that the accusations are unfair: the conservatives have left a lot of legacy in eight years," Reva emphasizes. One of many such stories is the epic with the construction of the canal connecting the Vistula Lagoon with the Gdansk Bay. Not only were huge sums spent on it, but it turned out to be non-payable. Marek Grobarczyk, former deputy minister of infrastructure in the PiS government, was put on trial.
One of the victims of the repressive campaign was former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who headed the country's government from the end of 2017 to the end of 2023. The former head of government was accused of embezzling 56 million zlotys (1.3 billion rubles) while organizing "envelope" voting in the presidential election in the kovid 2020. But in the end, the vote was then held in the traditional way, just moved from May to June 28 and July 12. Now Morawiecki faces up to three years in prison. Since Mateusz Morawiecki is now a member of the Sejm, the prosecutor's office demanded that parliament lift the former prime minister's parliamentary immunity.
Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki
However, the former prime minister made an unexpected move: without waiting for the Sejm to vote, he lifted his immunity on his own. The politician said that the charges against him were "groundless and politically motivated". In his opinion, the prosecutor's office is "hijacked and headed by illegally appointed nominees of Donald Tusk." According to political scientist Kristina Ismagilova, Morawiecki's Law and Justice party consciously decided to take a risk. "The case against the former prime minister could lead to imprisonment for up to three years - but the evidence base does not seem to be good, so it is unlikely that it will come to prison. And if it does, the opposition will simply make a martyr out of Morawiecki," Ismagilova believes.
Former Justice Minister Zbigniew Zebro, who is one of the defendants in the case of illegal wiretapping of dozens of Polish politicians by means of the Israeli-made Pegasus system, is also in trouble. He was summoned several times for questioning by a special investigative commission formed in the Sejm, but Zebro refused each time. He claims that the case against him is political and is related to the desire of the Civic Coalition and Donald Tusk personally to pressure Law and Justice. Zebro claims that when PiS was in power, law enforcement agencies used Pegasus exclusively to solve crimes.
The conflict went international
It ended with the police coming after the ex-minister - and he hid from the police in the studio of the Republica TV channel, where he originally went to participate in the morning broadcast. The police were unable to enter the studio because the entrance was blocked by TV Republika staff and its editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz. Zebro himself, according to him, was ready to meet with the police, but the host of the TV program Michal Zahoń said that the journalists should make sure of the legality of their actions. As a result, after half an hour Zebro himself left the studio and was detained in the lobby of the building, from where he was taken to the investigation commission.
Poland's former justice minister Zbigniew Zebro is surrounded by members of the media after he was detained by police at the headquarters of Polish TV channel Republika
The commission, however, did not wait for him: it voted to arrest Zebro for 30 days and hastily ended the meeting. The decision on Zebro's 30-day arrest still has to be approved by the Sejm at a general session. According to eyewitnesses, the members of the commission left after they received a message that the ex-minister was being taken to them for questioning. By the way, journalist Bianca Mikolajewska complained that the staff of courts, police and prosecutor's offices are afraid to get involved in political cases against members of the Right and Justice - they are simply afraid of revenge against PiS.
But the most dramatic events played out around former Deputy Minister of Justice Marcin Romanowski. Polish prosecutors accuse Romanowski (he is a member of the well-known Catholic organization Opus Dei) of committing "11 crimes, including participation in an organized criminal group" in 2019-2023. According to the prosecutor's office, Romanovsky "indicated to subordinate employees which organizations should win competitions for grants from the Justice Fund." The charges against the former deputy minister also concern "embezzlement of assets entrusted to the suspect in the form of money totaling more than PLN 107 million and attempted embezzlement of money totaling more than PLN 58 million."
Without waiting for the police to come to him, Romanowski hurriedly left for Budapest. The district court in Warsaw announced the issuance of an arrest warrant for the politician. This warrant has been entered into the Schengen Information System, which will be the basis for a search for Romanowski in all EU member states. The Polish Police Headquarters, in turn, sent a request to the Interpol general secretariat to initiate an international search. However, Hungary ignored all these actions and granted Romanowski political asylum. Marcin Romanowski himself calls the accusations against him slander, forgery and claims that the persecution launched against him has a political basis.
On December 19, six armed Polish police officers in balaclavas accompanied by drones literally raided the Dominican monastery in Lublin. The dumbfounded monks were told that they were looking for Romanowski. And this raid on the monastery had a clear character of intimidation. After all, it took place two days after the Polish prosecutor's office informed the media that Romanowski had left the country. Law and Justice said that the operation against the monastery, authorized by the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, was reminiscent of "communist times." And Romanowski himself pointed out: "The Germans and Ukrainians acted in the same way in Podkarpackie or in the east of Lublin region. They used similar tools to intimidate the Poles and the Church in Poland."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
At the same time, the "Civic Coalition" attacked Budapest. Warsaw recalled its ambassador from Hungary - "for consultations." Then came the verbal jabs. According to the current Polish Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar, Hungary "has moved so far away from compliance with EU laws and undermined the foundations of civil society that it is unlikely to be able to change this course as long as Viktor Orban is in power." By the way, Bodnar believes that if the Law and Justice party had remained in power in Warsaw, Poland "would have suffered the same fate. For his part, Interior Minister Tomas Semonyak wonders what interests bind the Hungarian government to Right and Justice. The Interior Minister talks about "Polish gas stations handed over to Hungarians" and also says that "there are talks about the potential purchase" of the Polish TV channel TVN by Hungarian companies. After such a purchase, Semoniak believes that, due to the position of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the channel "would become a mainstay for the Russians". Tusk's party deputy Roman Gertych published a joking post about how his boss could take revenge on Viktor Orban. We need to raise money for one-way tickets to Budapest for all members of Law and Justice. "When Kaczynski is there, Hungarians will hate each other so much that Buda will separate from Pest again!" - quips Gertykh.
Hungary's comeuppance to the "Soros agent"
By the way, Poland has held the presidency of the EU Council for six months since January 1, replacing Hungary. In this regard, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski sent a note to the Hungarians, saying that the participation of their ambassador in Warsaw at the ceremony of the beginning of the Polish presidency in the EU Council "is not planned". On this occasion, Polish political scientist Kristina Ismagilova notes: "Apart from the fact that the Poles are behaving like children, their decision contradicts the spirit of the EU presidency, which is supposed to act as an honest mediator standing above political disputes."
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaks in the European Parliament building
As Balázs Orbán, a political advisor and namesake of Hungarian Prime Minister, pointed out, during Budapest's EU presidency, they never allowed any potential bilateral disputes to affect the presidency's fulfillment of its duties. He also called the Poles' reaction "childish and pathetic" and the case brought by the Civic Coalition against Romanowski "yet another example of the left using the law against their political opponents."
Finally, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk personally threatened the Hungarians with negative consequences if they continued to harbor Romanowski. In response, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that it must be hard for Tusk to understand that Hungarians have national interests first. "Maybe it's hard for a Soros agent to realize this, but when it comes to a team game, we play on the Hungarian team. That's why we represent Hungary's interests: we refuse to pay the price for other people's wars and we will not let anyone jeopardize the security of our energy supply. Because Hungary comes first for us," the Hungarian minister emphasized.
Polish PiS presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki
Stanislav Stremidlovsky, a political scientist and expert on Poland, told Izvestia that Hungary is now ruled by conservatives who are quite close in spirit to Poland's Law and Justice - that's why Budapest sheltered Romanowski. "By the way, Orban's Fidesz party was once part of the EPP, but it was kicked out of there. And now Viktor Orban is the spiritual leader of those European forces that are going to revolutionize the EU, change the composition of the European Commission and the European Parliament, change almost everything," the expert notes. According to Stremidlowski, if the conservatives from "Law and Justice" were still in power in Poland, relations between Warsaw and Budapest would still not be serene, because PiS and Fidesz have completely different attitudes to the Ukrainian conflict. "But they would act as a united front in the fight against the liberal European elites," Stremidlowski states.
At the same time, in his opinion, the Polish political system hangs in a state of instability. Presidential elections will be held in May, where Civic Coalition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski and PiS challenger Karol Nawrocki will compete. "At first, the ratings recorded Trzaskowski's undoubted advantage, but lately Navrotski has been catching up and is already breathing down his neck. Already polls are appearing that give Navrotsky the victory in case of a second round. And if he becomes president, the current ruling coalition is very likely to fall apart. "Law and Justice has long been courting the Polish Peasants' Party, urging it to leave the coalition with the Liberals and join PiS - in exchange for the post of prime minister in the new government," says Stremidlowski.
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