Displaying items by tag: election campaign

In the old shipyard in Gdansk, where striking workers were once the catalyst for major political change, young Poles now worry that the rights and freedoms won by the Solidarity movement over three decades ago are at risk, as the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) campaigns to secure a record third term in office. Critics point to the shrinking independence of the courts under PiS and backsliding on women's rights, including a near-total ban on abortion. There is also concern about media freedom - publicly-funded TV becoming a government mouthpiece - as well as acrimonious wrangling with Brussels on issues from judicial reform to migration. Many Poles regard the election on 15 October as the most important since 1989, when Solidarity candidates swept the board in the first partially-free vote since communist rule. In such a polarised race, much of the campaigning has been nasty: opposition leader Donald Tusk has referred to the government as evil and called the prime minister Pinocchio. Mateusz Morawiecki’s party consistently claims that Tusks’s party represents ‘foreign interests’, painting him as a traitor and a stooge of Berlin. Opinion polls put PiS narrowly ahead - though possibly without a large enough majority to form a government.