“It is hard to believe that the latest wave of protests was spontaneous, just like the notorious December coup in the Sejm last year,” said Prime Minister Beata Szydło. “It was a stage-managed and well-funded campaign, designed to strike a blow against the government,” she added. Several opposition politicians reacted to her words.
Thousands of people protested in the streets of Polish cities, in which members of both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition parties took part. The protests erupted in connection with the parliament's work on three bills to reform the judiciary – the already binding amendment to the act on common courts, and the act on the Supreme Court and amendment of the act on the National Council of the Judiciary, both vetoed by the President.
Protests were staged in front of courts, the Sejm and the Presidential Palace. The demonstrators appealed to the President to veto all three bills.
“Stage-managed and well-funded campaign”
Asked during an interview for Gazeta Polska whether the wave of protests was, in her opinion, “drummed up, or whether it was a genuine grass-roots reaction,” the Prime Minister said “it was hard to believe that the latest protests were spontaneous. Just like the notorious December coup in the Sejm last year.”
In her opinion, “it was a stage-managed and well-funded campaign to strike a blow against the government.”
“Still, many people protested, because they disagree with us. We understand and respect this. This is normal in a democracy,” said the head of government.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister insisted that the debate should be conducted in “a peaceful and civil manner. And yet, it seems to me that politicians who are now in opposition and who have always claimed to be moderate, only seek to escalate aggression today. Hence my appeal for sobriety,” said Beata Szydło.
“This demonstrates the Prime Minister’s paranoid thinking”
Civic Platform MP Krzysztof Brejza commented that “conspiracy theories are the easiest excuse for the weakness of one’s own political group, for the weakness of PiS policy. This merely demonstrates the Prime Minister’s paranoid thinking, and the paranoid thinking of Jarosław Kaczyński, who detects conspiracies and the work of secret forces in his own failures and especially in protests and in the power of civil society,” he said.
“These are not secret forces, Mr. President. This is the voice of citizens, which should also be heard,” said Brejza.
“People rejected it”
The interview with Prime Minister Szydło also elicited comments from Piotr Misiło (Nowoczesna). “I don’t know who is supposed to have paid for them [the protests – ed.]. I did not receive any money, nor did I pay anyone,” he said.
On the other hand, he added, he saw thousands of people worried about Poland, who came to join the protests. “It is not normal in a democracy to destroy the separation of powers and the independence of the Supreme Court. People understood this and rejected it,” said Misiło.
“I am astonished that anyone should suggest there was someone behind this,” said PO MP Rafał Trzaskowski in reaction to Prime Minister Szydło’s interview. “This is such a classic vision of the world in terms of some sort of conspiracy and of nefarious black networks that the Law and Justice party keeps talking about,” he noted.
In his opinion, “any sane person knows that this is absolute nonsense. And yet, the Law and Justice party must somehow explain away the fact that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Poles are truly fed up with the destruction of the rule of law in Poland,” said Trzaskowski.
Źródło: Gazeta Polska, TVN24/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl