Prague, Dec 20 (CTK) – The chaos in Poland is due to neither a failure of the ruling party nor an attempted coup, but it is a consequence of the inexperience, inability and immaturity of politicians and political bodies of the former communist nation, Martin Ehl writes in Hospodarske noviny (HN) yesterday.
The chaos into which the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) has got Polish politics is a sign of that the Poles can play the world’s top league in stepping up emotions in politics, Ehl writes.
He writes that after one year of the rule of the Polish conservatives it is clear that their chief, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, does not apply methods and means that could be called common in a western democracy.
Fundamental decisions on the future of Poland are not made in parliament, but at the PiS’s headquarters. If they could act by themselves, the ruling party’s politicians would often behave in a different way, which parliament head Marek Kuchcinski’s attempt to make a concession to the opposition on Friday proved. However, after his talks with Kaczynski, he changed his mind, Ehl writes.
The year which has elapsed since the general election also exposed the inability of the Polish opposition, Ehl writes.
He writes that in the practically nonsensical squabble about the restriction of journalists’ rights in parliament, Kuchcinski overacted, which also a part of conservative journalists admit.
Kaczynski and the PiS’s hard core themselves are not able to take a step back, which they consider as amounting to surrender, Ehl writes.
The use of force in relation to the opposition and journalists is precisely to what the Poles have been historically very sensitive. It has offered to the otherwise toothless opposition an opportunity to unite itself for a moment at least, Ehl writes.
He writes that the opposition has received a strong argument with the help of which it can refer to the government party and its leader as an autocrat.
Kazcynski and his party are not as strong as it may seem. They had to make concessions on the hard anti-abortion bill, they proceed in a confused way in approving a badly drafted bill on education and they passed the 2017 state budget outside the parliament’s session room and without the opposition. This opened the door to challenging the legality of the decision, Ehl writes.
He writes that it now seems that both sides of the more and more divided society will be losing any scruples about further escalating their dispute.
Kaczynski, who is unable to allow his lawmakers to take the figurative step back that would calm down the situation, plays a very dangerous game with Poland, Ehl writes.
ms/t/pv
