In the morning program of Radio Republika, Bronisław Wildstein assessed that President Karol Nawrocki, by inviting candidates to the Constitutional Tribunal, “clearly demonstrates that he is, however, the decisive actor here”, in accordance with the Constitution. The publicist criticized the governing camp for treating the law “as it suits them” and warned against attempts to reduce the president to the role of a notary.
Bronisław Wildstein, writer and publicist, Knight of the Order of the White Eagle, in a conversation with Radio Republika referred to the planned 11:00 a.m. meeting of the president with the first of the candidates to the Constitutional Tribunal selected by the Sejm.
“It is clearly visible that the President is engaging in the game; he clearly demonstrates that he is, however, the decisive actor here. After all, in accordance with the Constitution,” Wildstein stressed.
He added that the current authorities are attempting to reduce the president to the role of a notary, which is contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
The publicist commented ironically on the appeal by the Speaker of the Sejm Włodzimierz Czarzasty for candidates to jointly refuse to take the oath before the president:
The Speaker Czarzasty is a specialist in democracy and a guardian of our democratic values and virtues. It is very beautiful that communists, that the former communist nomenklatura are now dressed up as guardians of our democratic rules.
In Wildstein’s view, it is rather Donald Tusk and his entourage who are becoming similar to Czarzasty, rather than the other way around.
Wildstein warned that the authorities treat law instrumentally:
The current authorities treat the law as they themselves said – as they understand it, as it suits them. He referred to the mechanism of “neo-judges”, who are at one moment recognized as judges and at another cease to be so, depending on whether their rulings suit the authorities.
In fact, one could abolish the courts altogether and leave only these two branches of power – he concluded with dark irony.
Assessing the media campaign against President Nawrocki in media associated with the governing camp (including Gazeta Wyborcza and TVN), Wildstein stated that he has become “the main enemy”.
Unfortunately, it is to some extent effective. That is sad, because this propaganda is already so resistant and seemingly so unambiguous. There is absolutely no attempt at even the appearance of rationality, the appearance of distance, or the appearance of objectivity.
As an example, he pointed to the lack of any substantive debate on the proposal of a European safe: the media do not compare the arguments of the president and the governor of the National Bank of Poland Adam Glapiński with the government’s proposal, but instead repeat the narrative that vetoing Tusk’s project means surrendering to Putin’s mercy.
Wildstein also referred to pedophilia scandals within Civic Platform (KO) (including cases in Kłodzko and the Greater Poland Voivodeship). He raised the issue of the attitude toward wrongdoing: whether a given political group, when such terrible phenomena appear within it, is able to hold itself accountable, cut them out, eliminate them, or do the opposite.
In the publicist’s view, Civic Platform (KO) behaves like a “dirty community”, in line with the Neumann doctrine – after a former party politician who said that the party protects its own to the very end.
If this doctrine not only applies but produces results in the sense that it protects this dirty community from accountability, then it will reflect very poorly on our future and on our political reality.
In conclusion, Wildstein expressed hope that Law and Justice (PiS) would stop focusing mainly on internal conflicts and instead focus on holding the governing camp accountable, “because there is plenty to account for”. He also critically referred to the growing anti-American sentiment within parts of the Polish right, considering it a worrying phenomenon.