Government by opinion poll is probably not the best way to run a country: bye bye art, culture, education; hello football, soap operas and institutionalized bribery – no wait, that’s not what I was trying to suggest. Hang on… But surely you can’t ignore the public all the time? For instance, this week’s Polityka reports […]
In yesterday’s entry I forgot to mention the huff that president Kaczyński disappeared into after Tusk’s victory. Apparently, before the wheels of government could be set again in motion, Tusk – like it or not, the people’s choice – had to apologise to the president for all the nasty things he said. Like for instance, […]
No, not really. He is bitter to the end. He is claiming that a judge’s decision to force a couple of PiS-sympathetic journalists to appear in court in a libel case is evidence that the new rulers of Poland are in cahoots with the judiciary to do down PiS. I know, I know it doesn’t […]
The prosecutors in Poland’s most highly politicised prosecution service (Warsaw) have had enough. Exclamation mark. They are rebelling. Exclamation mark. Nine or ten of them are resigning over the political interference in their work of putting criminals where they belong. Oh yes. Up with this they will no longer put. It’s pretty easy to resign, […]
The people of Poland woke up this morning slightly dazed, slightly confused, by the million-strong army of industrious party activists who were busily engaged in removing and ecologically disposing of the election campaign posters that had appeared over the last six weeks of intense but cheerful campaigning. Battered but proud, ex-prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński spoke […]
Yesterday’s entry on Beata Sawicka’s corruption charges was a little hurried. Here, for those with strong stomachs, is the sleazy story in more detail. In January 2007 the CBA (Anti-Corruption Office) agent meets Sawicka on a training course. He poses as the representative of a western property developer. On October 1st Sawicka is arrested for […]
Where to begin? Beata Sawicka, an opposition party deputy was caught red-handed by the CBA (Anti-Corruption Office) a week or two ago accepting a bribe in connection with the sale of land. A CBA man had gone undercover as a developer and elicited the bribe from Sawicka in an operation that lasted months and months […]
Here’s Sławomir Sierakowski in the latest Polityka: In a country where according to official statistics more than half of Poles live below the social minimum but discussion of economics usually begins with the flat tax and always ends with lowering taxes populists are bound to win.
The signs are unmistakeable. All over the land it is evident that Polish politicians have shaken off the complexes and shackles of yesteryear. The East is awake! The last time I saw election posters here almost every single photograph of the candidate had the very top of his or her head cropped by the photographer. […]
Poland has agreed after all to allow international observers inspect its elections. They are trying to say it was all a big mistake caused by the incompetence of the minister for foreign affairs. She is pretty incompetent, though, so it might even be true.
