The process of cleaning up the mess left by the PiS has begun. As you could imagine, this process is not easy, and it creates large political emotions. The conflict is besides inspired by voices calling for deescalation, national reconciliation and consent, respecting the trap of full polarization.
Toxic polarisation is of course not good, it can be a force that breaks down not only liberal democracy, but besides political community. The answer to today's Polish polarization – in many areas it is actually a dysfunctional and destructive state – is not "conciliation". It is not truly about political leaders abruptly beginning to agree publicly, singing “to be one/to share hands” to form a government of national unity, where Ziobro will sit next to Bodnar, Materewicz next to Sienkiewicz, Zandberg next to Mentzen, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk next to Elżbieta Witek.
The problem is not that Poland shares sharp conflicts. It is that political conflict in the country has radically savaged. And the fundamental task facing the full society and its political elite present is to re-establish it in a civilized framework.
How to fight and not kill
Liberal democracy is simply a squad of institutions allowing society to express its differences – different and frequently antagonistic interests, values, concepts of good life and all kinds of preferences – so as not to just kill itself, but not to teardrop apart the political community. No peculiar unity or even sympathy between groups is needed here, just the designation of certain common rules and the fact that we yet form a single political community.
In order to service liberal democracy, there are 3 elements: designation by the individual participants of the validity of the opponents and their interests, respect for formal and informal rules of political competition, and yet the ability to make a minimum consensus, including issues concerning the state's legitimacy, ensuring that state policy does not reset after any change of power.
With each of these 3 elements we have a serious problem in Poland. With the first in fact since the beginning of the IIIrd Polish Republic. The preceding division of the PO-PiS was mostly organized around the dispute, who has the right to participate in the democratic policy of Poland on equal rights. An crucial part of the right-wing has tried in various ways to refuse or restrict this law to the "post-communist" – mainly the SLD. The society was convinced that parties specified as the Alliance "less slowly", were threatened that if Kwasniewski was elected president, he would bury Polish aspirations related to the European Union and NATO.
It seemed that a fresh division based on the rivalry of 2 of the party's solidarity traditions, which inactive 1 year before the beginning fresh division of the elections in 2005 seemed natural allies, would be freed from the problem of common play in delegation. But it did not. The similarity of both parties until 2005 – erstwhile their paths and identities began to spread increasingly dramatically – proved to be 1 of the factors conducive to common demonization. due to the fact that both parties felt that if they demonized the competitor, they would prevent him from taking over his electorate.
After Smolensk, PiS fundamentally considered that the PO as a organization in any vague way "responsible for Smolensk" does not have a moral right not only to exercise power, but besides to participate in a average political game. The organization launched an insinuation-deligation run aimed at PO, Donald Tusk, and fundamentally the full political scene to the left. Although it was suspended on time for the double win of the 2015 election campaign, erstwhile the PiS very cleverly softened the image, erstwhile the Kaczyński Formation regained power, it continued with tools specified as public media.
Over the last 8 years, the Law and Justice have taken the position: we are a "patriot camp", the remainder being a camp of national treason; we are the emanation of the nation and its vital interests, our competitors of various muddy interest groups. The defeat in 2023 did not change this communicative framework, Jarosław Kaczyński repeats that Tusk was "installed" in Poland to implement a German policy aimed at the liquidation of independent Polish statehood.
Of course, the widely understood left-liberal camp besides demonized the Law and Justice. However, as we have seen in the last 8 years, the “fear of the Law” has proved to be rather good grounds. Liberals besides had a problem recognising the legitimacy of social electorate interests – but as many point out, the Liberal camp has moved on to more pragmatic positions in fresh years.
The problem of a state of lawlessness
We have an even bigger problem with the second element: accepting all applicable players for written and unwritten rules of political competition. The second are even more crucial than the first. The written law is never able to foretell all strategies by which determined actors can circumvent and distort it. Therefore, it is so crucial that all key political players respect and likewise realize the spirit of the Constitution, respect certain limits behind which the explanation and application of the law changes into its subversion.
In the last 8 years, the Law and Justice have never been able to gain a constitutional majority or accept governments within the Constitution. So he did something completely unusual: he mostly dismantled the constitutional order without changing the constitution. As a result, the coalition on 15 October received a decrease in what could be called a "lawless state".
In this country, the leading institutions are acting in a way that is grossly contrary to what the legislator has foreseen for them. Public media service as a tool for the propaganda of 1 party, state-owned companies and institutions specified as the Justice Fund service as a treasury of 1 political environment, The Constitutional Court shall decide as it expects. In the key places of the prosecutor's office, the arrangement created by Zbigniew Ziobra was dug up, and in the ultimate Court and National Judiciary Council by neo-judges. The service, as it all suggests, was instrumentalized for surveillance of the opposition.
At the same time, the letter of law protects against change all those spatologized by the Law and Justice institutions. This puts the coalition before very hard dilemmas. The adherence to the letter of the law makes the key to the functioning of the strategy proceed to act in a way which is grossly contrary to their mission under the law. An effort to remedy the situation may mean a request to “drive on a gang”, to act at the border or at least its very creative interpretation.
Each specified “drive on the band” – e.g. the exchange of TVP boards – intensifys the dispute and radicalises the current opposition. It is besides likely to be a script in which, after regaining power, the Law and Justice will play even harder. The problem is that calls to the coalition on October 15 to self-limitation, deescalation, and respect for the sensitivity of the Law and Justices present remind of a call from individual who caught a thief who stole half his life's possessions to leave him at least a 3rd of what he took, due to the fact that next time he will take even more and will beat him painfully.
A shrinking consensus
It was always best with the 3rd element: a certain area of consensus, guaranteeing the continuity of state policy. The post-communist division, despite all the games it included in the delegation, allowed policy continuity to be maintained in key areas: Atlantic and European integration and transition towards a democratic regulation of law.
Today, however, this area of consensus has radically shrunk. Actually, his only area is Ukraine. In European policy, especially the attitude towards Germany, the largest opposition organization moved to utmost positions. In a situation where Poland becomes a net contributor and the Union's climate policies become acutely felt by Poles, the PiS may decision to more or little open polexit positions.
On the another hand, on the side of any coalition voters on October 15, there is simply a belief that all policy of the Law and Justice was populist, unthinkable, senseless, thieving and state should apply option zero to all. It would be destructive to you if all fresh squad in power took that logic.
Fortunately, contrary to any of its constituents, the Liberal camp accepted the necessity of a social correction introduced by the Law and Justice. It is crucial that he adopts a likewise pragmatic attitude towards another key policies and projects left by the Law and Justice, e.g. army reforms, border protection or CPK.
It's the PiS that needs to get it together.
It cannot be expected that specified a pragmatic attitude will in any way limit the temperature of the dispute. The main opposition organization is not curious and will shout about the dictatorship until the power camp accepts the “institutionalised lawlessness” that the Law and Justices left behind. Therefore, calls for a "constitutional reset", which would lead to the recovery of the situation around the TK or neo-Judges, are highly naive. specified a reset would present be primarily in the interests of the 3rd Way, the Left and the Confederacy – due to the fact that it would liberate politics from the dispute over the legacy of the Law and make more space to article non-related political themes – possibly it could be accepted by the KO, but surely not by the Law and Justice. This organization seems to have pursued a strategy: it is now essential to shout as much as possible about lawlessness and dictatorship to usage what the Tusk government was doing as an excuse to completely dismantle the constitutional system. In fact, Jarosław Kaczyński admitted that erstwhile saidThat erstwhile the Law and Justice come to power, he would want to change the constitution "even if it had to be done by means of acts adopted on a peculiar basis".
At the same time, the process of dismantling institutions spatologized by the Law and Justice is accompanied by at least informational and frequently legal chaos. In a situation where the PiS-mounted strategy refuses to recognise changes introduced by the fresh government, problems arise specified as the deputy national prosecutor refusing to admit that their boss has been reinstated from work in an incorrect way.
However, the government cannot leave the "institutionalised lawlessness of the Law" and the systems protecting it, e.g. in the prosecutor's office, unchanged. At the same time, it is crucial that any changes be made calmly, not escalating emotions, not in revenge mode, but in building good institutions. If there is any objection to the prosecution's case, it is not that Barski was misused, but that the coalition on October 15 did not immediately have a bill on the table separating the function of lawyer General and Minister of Justice. 1 with crucial political costs for veto Andrzej Duda And the full political camp of the erstwhile president.
The best recipe before the revenge of the PiS populists after their possible return to power is not to arrange with Kaczyński in the case of Barski or neo-Judges, but to build strong, broad social legitimacy institutions that populists cannot simply plow. Whether it is an independent prosecutor's office or public media. It may not be until 2025, but the president must be bombed with good projects.
At the same time, it is impossible to hide that the anger and radicalism of the Law and Justice are present a large problem for Polish democracy. But this radicalism cannot be tamed. The appellates for deescalations should present be directed mainly at the Kaczyński Formation. Until this organization sobers up and understands that in 2015-2023 there have been crossings which democracy cannot accept, there is no chance to heal the Polish dispute. And given all the challenges around the country, this is necessary. erstwhile there is simply a war going on abroad, we request at least that the Polish-Polish war from a full conflict with the usage of political weapons of mass demolition should turn into an elegant, regular war, which is taking place according to certain minimum rules. Unfortunately, the hope that the PiS will become a average right, or that in its radicalism it will permanently become marginalized, seems alternatively flammable for now.
