The S-Bahn to Warsaw city centre is never so full on Sundays. This time, however, a large demonstration is to take place, "a march of strength and hope, not of helpless rage". This was announced by Poland's opposition leader Donald Tusk on Twitter. And so, from station to station, more people crowd into the wagons. An elegantly dressed elderly lady tries to get some air: "But it's good that it's so tight today," she says and smiles ambiguously. Two gentlemen smile back. Everyone understands what is meant.
Gerhard Gnauck
Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, based in Warsaw.
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Donald Tusk has called, and not only supporters of his Civic Platform (PO) have followed. It is true that Tusk does not currently sit in parliament because he was president of the European Council at the last election and then chairman of the European People's Party. But then, in 2022, he returned to Polish politics and once again took over the leadership of the largest opposition party.
His goal was clear: he had to take the national-conservative ruling party PiS, led by Jaroslaw Kaczyński, which has been driving the country willingly or unwillingly towards "Polexit" (leaving the EU) since 2015, by the horns and defeat him, and he could do that best. After all, Tusk himself was head of government from 2007 to 2014.
Now the 66-year-old politician from Gdansk sees the opportunity to return to the top of the government. In the autumn, Poland will elect a new parliament. The country has been in a permanent election campaign since last year, and because of the summer recess, there is not much time left for the challengers to the PiS government.
Duda wants to weaken the law
People flock to an intersection within sight of the seat of government. It is no coincidence that the PO has chosen June 4 as the day of its mass demonstration. On this day in 1989, after long negotiations, the civil rights movement had wrested halfway free elections from the tottering communist dictatorship, in which a large part of the seats were allocated completely freely – almost all of these seats went to the democratic opposition. Over the years, June 4 has become the most important day of remembrance in Poland.
But last week something happened that brought back bad memories. Poland's President Andrzej Duda – a PiS member but once promised to be "president of all Poles" – signed the law on the creation of a "State Commission to Investigate Russian Influence on Internal Security" since 2007. This means that the law is in force.
Critics see this as a "Lex Tusk" because the Commission could retroactively punish former officials for alleged "Russian influences" on their actions, such as the purchase of natural gas, oil and coal from Russia, and block them from taking over important public offices in the future. Among other things, this could be aimed at Donald Tusk, who, according to the latest polls, has a good chance of forming a coalition government as the PO's top candidate in the autumn. Brussels and Washington expressed their massive concern about the planned commission, which he said was a threat to "free and fair elections".
It is true that an uncertain-looking Duda submitted an amendment to the recently drafted law to parliament on Friday. In the draft, the ban on offices and other prohibitions are deleted; the Commission should therefore only "determine" that an official has acted "under Russian influence" and therefore offers no guarantee that Poland's interests will be adequately represented. The persons "identified" in this way should be able to appeal against decisions of the Commission before an ordinary court. Duda, however, adhered to the goal of creating a commission that "should act as soon as possible."
An official also protests
The rearguard battle was, as a Polish saying goes, a "shot in the foot" for the PiS camp. The fatal law and then the half-hearted correction after criticism from the United States, Warsaw's most important ally, infuriated many Poles. For example, Katarzyna, a young civil servant. Why did she come to the demonstration? "Because in our country, democratic rules are broken in order to satisfy particular interests," she says. "This government has pushed the boundaries of what is permissible for it more and more, it cannot go on like this."
Katarzyna does not want to give her last name because she belongs to the "Corps of the Civil Service", a kind of elite of the civil service. When this corps was formed in 2008 – under the Tusk government – it was stipulated that these officials had to be apolitical. "That's a good thing," says Katarzyna, "but then the PiS came along and put their favorites in the top positions of our service. So she was the first to break this rule. Now the loyalty of the civil service is also crumbling, and more and more people are expressing themselves politically."
As the demonstrators begin to move, Piotr Kaim, a chess teacher from Krakow, explains why he traveled with friends to the rally, which was attended by at least 100,000 people, as many as half a million, according to Tusk and the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski: "This law was the last chord with which an attempt is made to banish the opposition from public life. And I would like to say to you as a German: I find this paranoid propaganda of the PiS against Germany terrible. But Poland is not a country that can be fooled by the nose ring. I think these are the last twitches of the PiS government."
His Krakow acquaintance Katarzyna Werhun has a similar view: "This government first took action against the independent courts. Then came the almost total ban on abortion. And now this! I don't want our country to end up looking like Belarus and I have to emigrate in the fall."