Why am I angry at Poland’s PiS party?

The state media forgot about the iron rule that propaganda is effective only when it pretends to be something other than propaganda, writes Rafal A. Ziemkiewicz

Poland's main opposition leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski is questioned by a parliamentary commission at the parliament building, in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, March 15, 2024. Kaczynski appeared before a special parliamentary committee Friday to testify about the purchase and allegedly illegal use of advanced spyware by a government headed by his Law and Justice Party. The NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was used to spy on mobile devices belonging to opponents of the party. Recent findings suggest it was also used to eavesdrop on some key members of the right-wing party, as well. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
By Liz Heflin
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The following are excerpts from the full article on Do Rzeczy.

Law and Justice wasted a great opportunity given to it by the voters. During its eight years in power, the party had practically everything: a majority in both houses of parliament, the president, the Supreme Audit Office, the National Broadcasting Council and the National Media Council, created to quickly take over state media, the Constitutional Tribunal, the National Council of the Judiciary…

No one in Poland has received such a strong mandate to govern and has had so many tools for exercising power in their hands since 1989. And now that PiS has lost power, it has found itself, together with the people who counted on its rule, not even where it started but well below — because it has used up resources instead of multiplying them and has also created many mechanisms that it did not use itself, but has left for its successors to use against it. The best example here is the politicization of the election of National Electoral Commission judges, as a result of which the new majority is now taking away PiS’s funding, although the chairman of the National Electoral Commission himself publicly admits that there is no legal or factual basis for this.

All the changes that PiS introduced over the past eight years turned out to be easily reversible because everything depended on the decisions of the party headquarters, implemented through state institutions and with the money of state-owned companies. It was enough that the government changed, and the “independence camp” found itself in the dark.

Trouble inside PiS: Morawiecki feels betrayed, may be planning to leave the party

What’s more, the party that wasted these eight years so brilliantly refuses to reflect on anything. Even the most trivial: the poorly conducted election campaign, an erroneous understanding of voters’ expectations. These elections did not have to be lost, the scenario of “60 percent turnout and 215-225 seats” was realistic, if the government had not provoked a huge mobilization against itself.

PiS, and I mean not only the party but also its broad base, cannot afford to not reflect more deeply on the social changes that made the majority of politically active Poles decide to give change a chance. And on the fact that this majority has resolutely confirmed its decision several times, against the faith of left-liberal circles, who, not wanting to accept the truth, have created entire systems of denying it and convincing themselves that it was all a mistake, an accident, a momentary stumble. 

In other words: for eight years, PiS has not understood a single bit why it won the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2015, 2019 and 2020. The fact that PO and its circles have not understood this either gives hope, but makes me all the more furious at PiS for the dullness.

The state media forgot about the iron rule that propaganda is effective only when it pretends to be something other than propaganda. Instead, a shameless, constant rally of support for PiS was organized, which effectively made everything said there unbelievable.


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