A Berlin‑based German daily accuses former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk of carrying on the same hard‑right approach that Jarosław Kaczyński used, warning that this will tighten Poland’s political climate.
Tusk’s 2022 Election Victory and Promised Reform
In the 2022 elections, Donald Tusk’s coalition finished a landslide win, thanks to a surge of young voters who turned out in force to reject corruption, xenophobia, sexist politics, and international isolationism. Tusk and his ministers pledged transparency and a policy that would be fully different, writing the Polish publicist Klaus Bachmann in a weekend comment in the Berliner Zeitung.
Bachmann Notes Some Policy Shift
Bachmann acknowledged that “politics has indeed changed a bit” by pointing to greater pluralism in state media, the ending of state‑owned funding for ultra‑rightist parties, and the resolution of Poland’s conflict with the EU.
Stalled Accountability for PiS‑Era Corruption
Bachmann stated that “abstracting from this, little has happened in terms of corruption cases, constitutional breaches, and institutional reforms.” He attributes the failures to a presidential blockade, a lack of faith that voters truly desire change, and an “unofficial, unwritten constitution” that no one fully understands but everyone follows.
Critique of Polish Elite’s Extremism
Bachmann criticizes Polish elites for demanding that ultra‑rightist parties only succeed when the government adopts an even more extreme stance—“more xenophobic than the right, more nationalist than the nationalists, more anti‑Ukrainian than those who hate Ukraine, and more anti‑German and anti‑European than the PiS of the last decade.” He argues that PiS and the Civic Platform are in a race to extreme radicalism, fighting for the support of a council‑right Confederation in two years’ time.
Weakness of Constitutional Tribunal
The author says the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) no longer holds any power because it is inactive without executive support. It began sanctioning PiS violations but the Tusk government ignores the rulings that don’t suit it, arguing that “it is not a proper court.” He questions why a system that allows breaking the constitution without accountability is rarely used by those in power.
Existence of an Unwritten “Secret Constitution”
Bachmann claims that the “secret constitution,” apparently coexisting with the official 1997 constitution, forbids violence against the opposition and protects MPs’ immunity even during protests, while exempting party finances from prosecution until 2023. The secret code also governs elections.
Public Response and International Parallels
According to the Berliner Zeitung, the fact that rulers break the constitution, disband constitutional bodies, and ignore court decisions is not enough to mobilise Polish citizens—nor is America—because the core of democracy for them remains participation in regular elections. Bachmann says this is good news because politicians can’t do everything they want, but it is bad that such a secret code can only be invoked by elites and does not regulate the relationship between the governed and the governing, nor that of the weak or the disenfranchised.
