Two leading right-wing MPs aligned with the former ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), were prevented from entering the Polish Parliament (Sejm) by police Wednesday, after the Speaker of the Sejm, acting on a Supreme Court opinion, declared one of them no longer a member of the body.
The country’s president vowed to trigger a constitutional crisis in response to a clampdown on opponents of newly installed Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was sworn in on December 13th, 2023 after the PiS, the party with the most votes in the October election, was unable to form a governing coalition.
When former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik arrived outside parliament, a brawl erupted between PiS deputies and police. The MPs were manhandled away from entering the chamber, in what PiS officials have called evidence of a “coup d’état” by Warsaw’s new liberal regime. PiS officials had originally hoped to enter the building to obtain a parliamentary waiver, overturning the stripping of the two MPs’right to vote in the Sejm.
Both Kamiński and Wąsik had only recently been released from jail after police dramatically stormed Warsaw’s presidential palace in early January, arresting the two politicians on what PiS has labelled trumped-up corruption charges, ignoring a presidential pardon given to the two by conservative Polish president Andrzej Duda. Kamiński, a former anti-Soviet dissident, went so far as to launch a hunger strike before he was released from prison in January.
A criminal conviction prohibits a person from serving as an MP in Poland. Based on this, back in December, the speaker of the Sejm terminated the parliamentary mandates of Wasik and Kamiński. According to the daily Rzeczpospolita—purchased by a majority-Soros-owned Dutch investment firm shortly before the Polish election—the two appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. In separate rulings, one a day apart, a chamber of the court ruled the MPs were allowed to retain their seats and voting rights based on the pardon the two received in 2015. Later, another chamber of the court ruled that Kamiński was no longer an MP, leading Speaker Hołownia to revoke his status. The same did not happen with Wąsik.
Former Secretary of State for Europe Arkadiusz Mularczyk described Poland’s descent into political authoritarianism to The European Conservative, saying that both MPs were within their rights to enter the Sejm. The suspension of their voting rights meant that the parliament was acting in an “unconstitutional” manner, Arkadiusz said.
Arkadiusz also emphasised the illegality of refusing the MPs entry, adding that “the State Election Commission has not recognized the expiration of their mandates and has not named successors in their place.”
Despite concerns that Poland is becoming increasingly autocratic, the new Tusk government has received overly sympathetic media coverage outside Poland, such as the pro-EU Politico—favoured by EU elites—attempted to label the two elected officials trying to enter the chamber to do the work they were democratically elected to do as a “storming” of the parliament—evoking the spectre of January 6th in the United States. Mainstream media in Europe have focused on the brawl, painting it as evidence of the undemocratic intentions of PiS.
Speculation is now mounting in Poland about the possibility of a second election in under a year, as President Duda has vowed not to approve any laws passed in the Sejm while the two parliamentarians are suspended from voting.
Polish politics has been on edge since late last year, when Tusk and his rainbow coalition of liberal-left parties initiated a drastic purge of right-wing elements in state institutions culminating in the effective shutdown of the national broadcaster (TVP) and legal harassment of opposition figures in an overt attempt to overturn the legacy of eight years of PiS rule in Poland. Meanwhile the EU continues to observe near total silence on rule-of-law abuses committed by the Europhile Tusk regime.
