The leader of Poland’s right-wing Confederation party, Krzysztof Bosak, has called for the removal of Justice Minister Adam Bodnar, who he blames for the harassment of soldiers who defended themselves against aggressive migrants on the eastern border.
Still basking in the glow of the 12 percent his party polled in the European parliamentary election, Bosak went on the attack against the justice minister in the Donald Tusk government.
“It’s just not possible to defend the border and use firearms knowing that the minister is an ideological fanatic who has been setting up special teams of prosecutors to pursue soldiers and guards who dare to use firearms,” Bosak told portal Salon24.pl.
Bosak’s comments came in response to the tragic news about the death of yet another soldier who died on the border on June 4. The soldier’s remains were found on the premises of a military unit in Braniewo near the Russian border. According to unofficial information, it may have been a suicide. The news about this only surfaced a week later, after the European election. Bosak accused the government of hiding the information and of lacking transparency with regard to events on the border with Belarus.
The Confederation leader believes that “the soldiers and guards on the border are ill-equipped and undermanned, just as they had been under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government.” He called for substantial investment to be made at the border, as well as a change in the rules of engagement to help soldiers and guards cope with the migrant crisis.
However, he also felt that dismissing Bodnar was needed because the minister “is incapable of giving our soldiers and guards the feeling of security they need for their own safety.”
Bosak felt that it was possible for Prime Minister Donald Tusk to sack Bodnar since the minister is not a major figure in Tusk’s party (KO) but was not convinced that this would happen.
The Confederation leader also said that his party was not interested in forming a coalition with PiS. He criticized PiS for accepting both the EU Green Deal and the conditionality mechanism for the release of EU funds. He also accused former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of having “sold out Polish voters for the mirage of being accepted by the EU elites and getting EU funds, which his party wanted to use to cling onto power.”
He was confident that his party was now the third force in Polish politics, as it had almost doubled its share of the vote since the autumn, whereas the Third Way alliance had seen its share of votes more than halved in the same period.
