Brussels – After the two fall election rounds that delivered opposite results for pro-European forces, half of the Visegrád group is now in the midst of large street demonstrations on the issue of the rule of law, but with drives of a decidedly different nature. If protests in Poland are led by the former ruling Law and
Justice (PiS) party to try to stymie media reforms and the dismantling of
cronyism over the last eight years, in Slovakia it is the liberal centre
parties that have been defeated at the polls to oppose attempts by the
red-black government led by Robert Fico to dismantle an office critical to the judicial fight against the country’s organized
crime and corruption.
In Warsaw, a demonstration was staged yesterday (Jan. 11 by tens of thousands of supporters of the ultraconservative PiS party, which in the October 2023 elections was confirmed as the leading force in parliament but losing the majority it needed to remain in power. Since the new government inauguration led by centre-right popular Tusk in mid-December, political and institutional tension has kept rising in Poland, for two different but complementary reasons. On the one hand, the new coalition of pro-European forces is trying to immediately implement a series of changes to the state apparatus to end the violations of the rule of law that characterized the administration of the former prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. But these attempts have at the same time provoked growing resistance in the opposing camp, whose leading institutional figure is now the President of the Republic, Andrzej Duda.
President Duda announced yesterday his intention to pardon two MPs from his own party convicted of abuse of office and taken into police custody Tuesday (Jan. 9) after taking refuge in the presidential palace. Meanwhile, demonstrators from the conservative right rallied in front of Parliament led by PiS’ president Jarosław Kaczyński to protest attempts by the majority parties to bring to trial the central bank governor, Adam Glapiński accused of making national monetary policy a tool in the hands of the former ruling party. But at the centre of the clash between the old and new courses in Poland is also the public media sector, following the late December decision by Prime Minister Tusk to fire the executives of Tvp television, the radio station Polskie Radio, and the news agency Polska Agencja Prasowa, accusing them of turning editorial offices into propaganda tools of Law and Justice and claiming a gradual return to press freedom.
From left: the leader of the Slovak Progressive Party, Michal Šimečka, and the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico (credits: Vladimir Simicek / Afp)
If the protests in Poland have an almost reactionary character, it is a different matter in Slovakia. The protests by liberal oppositions to the nationalist government formed by an extreme right-wing party and two social democrats (suspended from the European family precisely for this) have been going on for weeks, and yesterday thousands of people in the country’s major cities took to the streets to oppose Premier Fico’s plans to amend the Criminal Code. The most critical point concerns the abolition of the office of the special prosecutor—which deals with serious crimes such as those related to organized crime and high-level corruption—and the return of cases to the hands of prosecutors in regional offices. The opposition’s complaint is of an attempt to weaken the judiciary, in a country where the current prime minister himself had to resign in 2018 following the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kušnírová, who had exposed links between the ‘ndrangheta and the Slovak elite (including members of his Smer party).
Despite the defeat in the September 30, 2023 election, the oppositions never lost their grip on the progressive electorate, and the street protests in the capital Bratislava were led by the president of the Slovak Progressive Party and former vice-president of the EU Parliament, Michal Šimečka. “Every day we try to dismantle the harmful and failed laws of the Fico government,” the former liberal MEP attacked, warning the prime minister of “underestimating people’s desire for freedom and justice.” The amendments to the Criminal Code presented by the executive are expected to pass the parliamentary vote without too many problems (being able to count on 79 out of 150 deputies), but the major stumbling block could arise in the scenario—as in Poland—of an institutional clash. Since she is unlikely to be able to veto it—unless there are defections in the majority—the President of the Republic, Zuzana Čaputová, has already warned that she will be ready to appeal to the Constitutional Court if Parliament proceeds with the approval of the legislation.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
