The battle for Poland’s soul just took an ugly turn down memory lane.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, invoked the most tragic episode in recent Polish history during a raucous parliamentary debate Wednesday over a contentious law to overhaul — and, opponents say, politicize — the country’s judiciary.
“I know you are afraid of the truth, but don’t wipe your treacherous mugs with my late brother’s name,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski fumed in the Sejm, Poland’s legislative body. “You destroyed him, murdered him. You’re scumbags.”
The parliament erupted in a chorus of cheers and heckles. Scuffles were reported. The country’s political established was aghast. And the rant, captured on video, went viral in Poland.
The verbal attack was provoked by Borys Budka, a member of the political opposition. He quipped that Kaczynski’s twin brother, former president Lech Kaczynski, “wouldn’t allow” the proposed judiciary law, which has sparked a rash of protests in parliament and on the Polish street.
Lech Kaczynski died seven years ago in a plane crash that also claimed the lives of dozens of senior Polish government officials. He was on his way to Katyn, in Russia, the site of the World War II-era massacre of Poles by the Soviet Union, to attend a 70th anniversary commemoration. The incident, officially ruled an accident, remains an open wound in Poland, where conspiracies blaming the Kremlin for the disaster abound.
“This was a brutal, disgraceful and unfounded attack on all opposition MPs,” Budka later said of Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s remarks.
The remarks weren’t enough to derail the proposed judiciary law, though. The PiS-supported bill remains under consideration.
The judiciary law, if passed, might be the last straw for Brussels, which has repeatedly expressed alarm at the purported erosion of Polish democracy under the right-wing PiS government. On Wednesday, European Commissioner Frans Timmermans warned that the EU was “very close” to suspending Poland’s voting rights within the bloc.
This so-called “nuclear option” has never been invoked against an EU member state.
Photo Credit: JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images
