Radosław Markowski, a Polish professor of social science who works closely with the George Soros-backed Batory Foundation, caused an uproar over the weekend when during an interview on Polish national radio, he called for the governing PiS party to be de-legalized in a spirit similar to that of the de-Nazification carried out in Germany after World War II.
Radical opposition groups and some lawyers who support them have previously called for PiS to be outlawed.
The liberal academic was asked about his views expressed in the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, the owners of which have received an injection of capital from Soros-backed funds. He had gone on record saying that in order to restore the rule of law in Poland there was a need to “initiate the process of de-legalizing” the ruling conservative PiS party. Markowski, in his RMF FM interview, doubled down on his position but emphasized that making PiS illegal was the task of lawyers and he was just expressing his view as a political scientist and citizen.
Markowski argued that the rights of political parties are limited by the constitution. In his view, PiS as a political party is undemocratic and therefore the procedure for de-legalizing it should be activated. According to Polish law, a party may be outlawed by a decision of the courts if it is found to be actively supportive of a totalitarian ideology or opposes the existence of the Polish state.
The radio interviewer then asked what Prof. Markowski proposed to do with the millions of people who voted for PiS. Comparing the task to the de-Nazification of Germany, even though he claimed that he was not comparing today’s Poland to Nazi Germany, Markowski said that if the process of de-Nazification in Germany was accepted by German society after the war, and it was relatively quickly returned to democratic norms, then the process would be much easier in Poland with regard to the PiS electorate.
It’s no coincidence that the conservative PiS has become such a source of irritation for liberal elites. The reason is that PiS has strengthened Poland’s economy, its social cohesion, and its standing in the world, and the country has been catching up with the West rather than being a tax haven and source of cheap labor.
Instead of de-legalizing a party that has been proven right on Russia’s intentions and which has secured energy sovereignty, it would be better to consider de-legalizing those who tolerated asset-stripping privatizations, tax fraud, and mass unemployment, as well as those who yielded to Russia and allowed Poland to become vassal-like with regard to Germany. If anyone should be outlawed, it should be those who work against Poland and not those who protect the country’s interests.
