The interrogation conducted by the Tusk coalition-led investigative committee in the Polish parliament, is not going as planned. Instead, it has revealed to the left-liberal Civic Coalition (KO) how Poland under the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) was a country governed in a way in which wrongdoing was uncovered and dealt with, which was not always the case under the Tusk government from 2007 to 2015.
Mariusz Kamiński, the interior minister in the previous PiS government, simply stuck to the facts of how the state’s security services properly detected and addressed wrongdoing. It should offer an educational experience for the Tusk people, but probably won’t. The contrast with the way the left-liberal government handled previous scandals such as the Amber Gold financial pyramid scheme and the scandal of massive VAT fraud could not be greater.
Tusk’s party also chose a curious “prosecutor” to pursue Kamński. MP Michał Szczerba tried to allege that PiS opened the door to illegal migration into Poland. This couldn’t have been the same Michał Szczerba who tried to help illegal migrants on the border with Belarus by delivering them pizza, now could it? Surely some mistake.
Kamiński simply explained that once he received information about the abuses of the visa regime, he handed the matter over to the anti-corruption agency (CBA), which conducted the investigation and uncovered the irregularities. All the evidence was collected and used during the lifetime of the last government. People were charged, and there were political consequences suffered by the relevant deputy minister. Nothing was swept under the rug.
What a contrast to the case of the Amber Gold pyramid scheme, where no action was taken even when Donald Tusk, who was also serving as prime minister at that time, was aware that something fishy was up. There was of course also the case of VAT fraud, which revealed that the state security services were completely ignorant.
Kamiński during the interrogation was able to turn the tables on Szczerba by reminding him of how there had been irregularities in the issuing of visas during the last Tusk government.
The committee hearing turned out to be not only a victory for Kamiński, but also for the way the conservatives ruled the country and combated corruption. Let us hope voters draw the right conclusions.
