WARSAW, POLAND (AP) – Poland’s largest opposition party is leading a march yesterday meant to mobilise voters against the right-wing government, which it accuses of eroding democracy and following Hungary and Turkiye down the path to autocracy.
The country’s former prime minister Donald Tusk has called on Poles to march with him for the sake of the nation’s future. His party and security officials predicted that tens of thousands of people will join the demonstration.
Media not aligned with the government said it could be among the biggest protests in post-communist Poland as fears grow that a fall election won’t be fair.
Supporters of the march have warned that the election might be the nation’s last chance to stop the erosion of democracy under the ruling party, Law and Justice.
In power since 2015, Law and Justice has found a popular formula, combining higher social spending with socially conservative policies and support for the church in the mostly Catholic nation.
However, critics have warned for years that the party is reversing many of the achievements made since Poland emerged from communist rule in 1989.
Even the United States (US) government has intervened at times when it felt the government was eroding press freedom and academic freedom in the area of Holocaust research.
Critics point mainly to the party’s step-by-step takeover of the judiciary and media. It uses state media for heavy-handed propaganda to tarnish opponents. The march is being held on the 34th anniversary of the first partly free elections, a democratic breakthrough in the toppling of communism across Eastern Europe.
It will be a test for Tusk’s Civic Platform, a centrist and pro-European party which has been trailing in polls behind Law and Justice, but which seems set to gain more support after the passage of a controversial law.
Critics argue that the commission would have unconstitutional powers, including the capacity to exclude officials from public life for a decade.
They fear it will be used by the ruling party to remove Tusk and other opponents from public life.
Amid uproar in Poland and criticism from the US and the European Union, Poland President Andrzej Duda, who signed the law on May 29, proposed amendments to it on Friday.
In the meantime, the law will take effect with no guarantees lawmakers in parliament will weaken the commission’s powers.
Some Poles say it could come to resemble the investigations of Joseph McCarthy, the US senator whose anti-communist campaign in the early 1950s led to hysteria and political persecution.
Poland is expected to hold general elections in October, though a date has not yet been set.
