Dem
51
GOP
49
For the last 8 years, Poland has been led by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). PiS banned abortions, stacked the Polish judiciary with hyperpartisan judges, cracked down on LGBTQ people, restricted voting rights and pursued an isolationist foreign policy, among other things. Perhaps this sounds familiar.
The Polish people grew weary with this approach, and so in the recent (complicated) elections, they handed a majority of the seats to non-PiS parties. PiS remains the largest party in the Polish parliament, but nobody was willing to work with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to form a government. And so, he failed, paving the way for Donald Tusk, of the Civic Coalition (KO), to reclaim the job he held from 2007-14.
The freudenfreude element here is this: Not only did the Polish people decide they wanted a change, they became deeply invested in making sure it happened. As the maneuvering that confirmed Morawiecki's downfall was in process, the Polish parliament, a.k.a. the Sejm, began live-streaming its meetings. And the streams were wildly popular, attracting more than 1 million people a day. In fact, it is such a phenomenon that the Polish media has dubbed it Sejmflix. Movie theaters have even taken to showing the livestreams, and selling popcorn to those who want to watch.
There is something very uplifting in seeing that a country whose democracy was seriously threatened responded not by giving up, but by rallying the troops, and by engaging in the political process with enthusiasm and optimism. In particular, the return of Tusk was driven by women and young people. One can only hope that any other nations who happen to be faced with the specter of an undemocratic regime respond in a similar fashion. (Z)