{"id":61951,"date":"2025-11-19T06:54:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T05:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=61951"},"modified":"2025-11-20T23:04:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T22:04:57","slug":"epp-partners-elect-a-post-communist-as-president-of-the-polish-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/11\/19\/epp-partners-elect-a-post-communist-as-president-of-the-polish-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"EPP partners elect a post-communist as president of the Polish Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Republic of Poland is experiencing a truly surreal moment in its history 36 years after the fall of communism.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/02\/06\/the-astonishing-silence-of-the-spanish-media-on-what-is-happening-in-poland\/\">The astonishing silence of the Spanish media on what is happening in Poland<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/02\/06\/the-president-of-the-polish-constitutional-court-accuses-donald-tusk-of-staging-a-coup\/\">The president of the Polish Constitutional Court accuses Donald Tusk of staging a 'coup'<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><big>Tusk allied himself with the left to govern after losing the elections<\/big><\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, after losing the elections, <strong>Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland and President of Platforma Obywatelska (PO)<\/strong>, the main Polish partner of the European People's Party (EPP), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/10\/16\/poland-could-be-governed-by-an-alliance-of-partners-of-the-popular-party-and-socialists\/\">became Prime Minister thanks to an alliance with the Socialists<\/a>. Since then, and with the acquiescence of the European Commission presided over by Ursula von der Leyen (of the EPP), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/02\/06\/the-astonishing-silence-of-the-spanish-media-on-what-is-happening-in-poland\/\">Tusk has been undermining the rule of law in a manner very similar to that of the socialist Pedro S\u00e1nchez in Spain<\/a>. In both cases, <strong>Von der Leyen has not issued even the slightest criticism<\/strong> against the authoritarian drift of both leaders.<\/p>\n<p><big>Tusk's coalition chooses a post-communist as marshal of the Sejm<\/big><\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, with the support of the Tusk PO, <a href=\"https:\/\/wydarzenia.interia.pl\/kraj\/news-nowy-marszalek-sejmu-wybrany-poslowie-zdecydowali,nId,22455271\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">W\u0142odzimierz Czarzasty was elected Marshal (president) of the Sejm<\/a>, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, with 236 votes in favor, 209 against, and 2 abstentions. <strong>Czarzasty is Vice-President of Nowa Lewica (New Left), a socialist coalition<\/strong> that is part of the Party of European Socialists. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/10\/16\/poland-could-be-governed-by-an-alliance-of-partners-of-the-popular-party-and-socialists\/\">As I explained here two years ago<\/a>, <strong>Nowa Lewica is a coalition of socialist parties whose main partner is the Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej<\/strong> (SLD, Democratic Left Alliance), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2019\/05\/28\/the-polish-right-defeats-a-strange-alliance-of-centrists-leftists-and-post-communists\/\">heir to the single party of the communist dictatorship that disappeared in 1989<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><big>The new marshal was a member of the dictatorship's single party until 1990<\/big><\/p>\n<p>Years ago, <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180123072259\/http:\/\/www.sld.org.pl\/politycy\/728-czarzasty.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the SLD website stated the following about Czarzasty<\/a>: <em>\"<strong>Member of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) between 1983 and 1990<\/strong>.\"<\/em> The PZPR, with its Marxist-Leninist ideology and founded in 1948 by Polish communists, <strong>was the single party of that dictatorship<\/strong>. Thus, while millions of Poles mobilized in defense of freedom, led by the Catholic trade union Solidarity, <strong>Czarzasty supported the party of the communist dictatorship until after its fall in 1989.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><big>Communists one day, social democrats the next<\/big><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2019\/05\/29\/from-tyrants-to-social-democrats-costumes-of-the-communism-in-the-old-marxist-europe\/\">Just as happened in other countries of the former Soviet bloc<\/a>, as I already explained here six years ago, <strong>the PZPR was dissolved at the end of January 1990 and its members immediately formed the Social Democratic Party of the Republic of Poland (SdPR)<\/strong>, following the tactic of other single communist parties of suddenly passing themselves off as social democrats. <strong>The SdPR was dissolved on April 15, 1999 and on the same day the SLD was founded<\/strong>, made up mostly of former members of the single party of the dictatorship and which obtained 49 seats in the Sejm in the 2019 parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Czarzasty was president of the SLD until its dissolution on June 11, 2021<\/strong>, the same day as the founding of Nowa Lewica. In the 2023 parliamentary elections, with Czarzasty at the helm, <a href=\"https:\/\/sejmsenat2023.pkw.gov.pl\/sejmsenat2023\/en\/komitet\/29617\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nowa Lewica only won 19 of the 460 seats in the Sejm<\/a>. Despite her electoral defeat two years ago, <strong>Tusk made a pact with this post-communist coalition<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pl.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trzeci_rz%C4%85d_Donalda_Tuska\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">granting it four ministries in her cabinet<\/a> and making one of those four ministers, Krzysztof Gawkowski, deputy prime minister. <strong>The post-communists had not been part of the Polish government since 2005<\/strong>, when the four-year term of the coalition government led by Leszek Miller (of the SLD) came to an end. <strong>Now, thanks to their Polish partners in the EPP, they also hold the presidency of the Sejm.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><big>Several members of the ruling coalition refused to vote for Czarzasty<\/big><\/p>\n<p>The election of Czarzasty as Marshal of the Sejm has generated considerable controversy in Poland. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/wydarzenia.interia.pl\/kraj\/news-nowy-marszalek-sejmu-wybrany-poslowie-zdecydowali,nId,22455271\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">several members of the ruling coalition voted against him or abstained<\/a>. This Tuesday, <strong>the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki<\/strong>, a member of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, <a href=\"https:\/\/wpolityce.pl\/polityka\/746047-nawrocki-prezydent-antykomunista-a-marszalek-postkomunista\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">declared<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"Today we have a situation in the country where <strong>the President of Poland is an anti-communist<\/strong> and former president of the Institute of National Remembrance, <strong>and the President of the Sejm is a post-communist<\/strong>.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Nawrocki added:<\/strong> <em>\"I think there will come a time when everything that is happening today surrounding the parliamentary majority will finally <strong>make Poles realize that we are not on the right track<\/strong>.\"<\/em><\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Photo: Efe. Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland and President of Platforma Obywatelska (PO), the main Polish partner of the European People's Party (EPP).<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Republic of Poland is experiencing a truly surreal moment in its history 36 years after the fall of communism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10373],"tags":[11323,15884,24479,25760,17677,10993,10370,10723,9972,24481,25759],"class_list":["post-61951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","tag-donald-tusk","tag-european-peoples-party-epp","tag-karol-nawrocki","tag-krzysztof-gawkowski","tag-nowa-lewica","tag-platforma-obywatelska-po","tag-poland","tag-prawo-i-sprawiedliwosc-pis","tag-sejm","tag-stowarzyszenie-lewicy-demokratycznej-sld","tag-wlodzimierz-czarzasty"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-12 05:24:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}