Poland: large-scale mobilization in Warsaw against the nationalist government

He disappeared from the political scene long ago. Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland and the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner, “patiently” waited for the day when the ruling nationalist party and its leader Kaczynski would have to leave. That day has come: like him, half a million Poles took to the streets of Warsaw this Sunday to demonstrate against the ruling populist nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government, its leader Jarosław Kaczynski and his allies, the organizers announced.

“The city hall estimates (attendance) right now at 500,000 people,” said Jan Grabec, a spokesman for the march organizers. This demonstration seems to be the largest in this country since the fall of communism in 1989.

Demonstrators from all over Poland dressed in Polish white and red uniforms and EU colors responded to the call of the leader of the main centrist opposition party, Donald Tusk.

They protest against “the cost of living, fraud and lies, in favor of democracy, free elections and the EU.” “That’s enough!”, “We don’t want an authoritarian Poland”, “PiS is expensive,” shouted posters against the majority in power in Poland for almost eight years, a few months before the autumn legislative elections.

With white and red hearts taped to their chests, PO officials led the way, accompanied by Lech Walesa, the legendary leader of the first free trade union in the communist world in the 1980s: “Mr. Kaczynski, we have come for you. That day has come,” he said.

In a brief inaugural address, Donald Tusk stressed that the opposition’s mission was “comparable in importance” to the mission of the 1980s and the fight against communism of that time. The date of the demonstration was not chosen by chance: it coincides with the 34th anniversary of the first partially free elections in Poland, which hastened the fall of communism in Europe.

Then the Lech Walesa movement managed to get 160 of its candidates into the lower house, thus obtaining almost all the seats it could compete for, that is, 35% of the mandates of this assembly and 99% of all senators.