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Poland’s Most Powerful Politician Joins Cabinet to Quash Crisis

Poland’s Most Powerful Politician Joins Cabinet to Quash Crisis

The leader of Poland’s ruling party will join the cabinet as deputy prime minister in a revamp that appears to push the government further to the right and follows weeks of tensions that threatened to trigger snap elections.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski is the driving conservative force behind the campaign to reshape Poland that’s put the country in an unprecedented standoff with the European Union. While wielding absolute over the government, he’s until now done so from behind the scenes as party leader and an ordinary member of parliament.

Poland’s Most Powerful Politician Joins Cabinet to Quash Crisis

By taking an official role, he’s trying to quash a confrontation between Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who heads the junior-ruling United Poland party. Ziobro brought the coalition to the brink of collapse this month by torpedoing legislation that Kaczynski’s Law & Justice Party said was needed to effectively fight Covid-19.

Morawiecki announced details of the new lineup on Wednesday, which includes anti-gay hardliner Przemyslaw Czarnek as the new minister of education and science.

“Kaczynski will be a very big boost for the cabinet, and help the entire ruling bloc implement our program,” Morawiecki said.

‘Normal People’

Czranek, the new minister, repeatedly attacked LGBT community during 2020 presidential campaign. In June, he vowed to defend Poland from “LGBT ideology” and urged people “to stop listening to rubbish about human rights and equality as gay people aren’t equal to normal people.”

Kaczynski will oversee the justice, defense and security portfolios. That will give him direct oversight of Ziobro, a former Law & Justice member who’s pushing to steer the government’s already conservative agenda further to the right.

Ziobro has for years tried to position himself as Kaczynski’s eventual replacement. He authored an overhaul of Poland’s judiciary that’s triggered unprecedented censure from the EU and probes into whether the country of 38 million is adhering to the bloc’s democratic standards.

A champion of anti-gay policies who’s working to withdraw Poland from the international Istanbul Treaty on protecting women’s rights, Ziobro sparked the crisis when his party refused to approve legislation granting immunity to Polish officials for actions taken during the fight against the coronavirus.

That endangered Morawiecki, who a Polish court ruled had “blatantly” broken the law in spending 70 million zloty ($18 million) to prepare this year’s presidential election during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic before it was delayed. Ziobro also opposed a bill to boost protection for animals -- legislation Kaczynski had personally backed.

Back-Seat Driver

But ejecting Ziobro and his party from the ruling grouping wasn’t a ready option, as it would force Law & Justice into a minority government that would face the constant threat of sniping from United Poland and the nation’s pro-EU opposition.

Law & Justice remains Poland’s most popular political force, but the 71-year Kaczynski has bitter memories of brinkmanship after he was driven into opposition in 2007 when he tried to solve a coalition spat by forcing snap elections that handed power to his rivals.

While the coalition agreement and new cabinet lineup staves off immediate collapse, tensions may simmer. Governing may also become more difficult, as the man who’s until now called the shots will technically report to a prime minister he still controls.

“Until now Kaczynski was a back-seat driver, now he’s gotten into the passenger seat and started holding the steering wheel,” said Andrzej Rychard, a sociology professor at the Polish Academy of Science. “This isn’t best for a car in motion.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.