Poland’s political power struggle intensified on Tuesday as police stormed the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, arresting two former Law and Justice (PiS) ministers amid new claims of rising authoritarianism from the recently installed Donald Tusk administration.
Former interior minister and deputy interior minister Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik were snatched by police on abuse-of-power charges dating back to 2007, with both politicians decrying the arrests as politically motivated.
Wider press coverage of these events is striking for its double standards. Whereas sovereigntist politicians are condemned for any and all perceived ‘rule of law’ violations, mainstream media routinely commend the authoritarian actions of pro-EU governments, such as when new Polish PM Tusk ordered police to partially shut down national broadcaster TVP in what critics called a disturbing throwback to the Soviet era.
In the aftermath of the arrests, interior minister Marcin Kierwiński took to social media to praise the actions as part of fighting corruption.
The arrests will almost certainly escalate a brewing battle between new PM Tusk and PiS ally President Andrzej Duda. Duda is seen by the Polish Right as their best weapon against a growing institutional purge by Tusk and his rainbow coalition administration.
PiS officials promise to come out fighting, confirming to The European Conservative that they hope to rally their forces on the streets on January 11th during a planned demonstration against the harsh measures of Tusk and his cabinet.
In comments to The European Conservative, Arkadiusz Mularczyk MP slammed the EU for its total silence on the arrests, despite their vocal denunciation of eight years of conservative rule in Poland. “This system that Tusk is leading in Poland is a very similar political system to that of Russia and Belarus—political actions without the legal framework,” the PiS politician added. Jailed MPs Mariusz Kamiński is reported by party sources to have started a hunger strike on Wednesday morning against what he views as political prosecution.
The two PiS ministers are not the only members of the former Polish government facing prosecution. Multiple right-wing MEPs are facing hate speech charges for sharing anti-immigration content on social media after the European Parliament stripped them of their parliamentary immunity in November in response to a NGO-led campaign.
Tusk is a close ally of the EU, meaning that, regardless of his heavy-handed approach to his political opponents, Eurocrats rejoiced at his liberal coalition’s victory against the previous PiS government and continue to support rolling ‘rule of law’ lawfare targeted at conservatives across the country.
Such concerns were nowhere to be found in most media coverage of the arrests in Warsaw as Politico, the mainline publication for EU elites, took a decidedly relaxed view of the Tusk crackdown, despite its own repeated warnings about ‘authoritarianism’ and ‘the rise of the far right’ in Poland and across Europe.
