Inputs by Shuchi Giridhar
The people of Poland have begun protesting against the current government. An anti-government march was held in Poland’s capital Warsaw on Sunday.
What happened?
The leader of the opposition party and ex-Prime Minister Donald Tusk led the protest along with Warsaw’s Mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski. According to the mayor, around 500,000 people participated in the protest. Not only did the citizens of Warsaw protest, People from all over Poland are holding protests against the government. This is one of the largest protests since 1989. Those protests made Poland a democracy. Even the leader of the 1989 protests and former president Lech Walesa is against Poland’s government.
Why are people protesting?
The government that people are protesting against, PiS, was elected in 2015. People are especially upset about a new law that allows the government to keep people from holding office if they are judged to have ties with Russia.
PiS also has had many disagreements with the European Union. PiS once made severe changes to weaken the court of Poland in 2019. These changes were proved to be illegal according to EU law (Poland is subject to EU law). Even after the highest court of the European Union ruled that these changes were illegal, PiS refused to undo the changes.
PiS states that the EU does not have the power to change Poland’s decisions. This is also one of the reasons for the protest. PiS has had many disagreements with the European Union even before the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022.
What next?
The upcoming election will decide. Poland is scheduled to go to polls in October/November 2023. It is estimated that due to media connections PiS might win the upcoming elections. But the opposition party also has a big chance to win as PiS has been getting a lot of negative feedback. Looks like we’ll just have to wait and watch.