If the ongoing lockdown – unprecedented on this scale in the modern history – is to continue for another three months or longer, we will bear witness to an economic and humanitarian catastrophe. What might follow is a massive and unpredictable social rebellion.
The restructuring of the state in a latently authoritarian direction is being pushed even further. The government’s worrying trend is particularly evident in the way it is trying to instrumentalize the COVID-19 crisis for the upcoming presidential elections on May 10.
Amid the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland shows no intention of postponing the presidential elections scheduled for May 10. The outcome is likely to be deemed illegitimate. Will this be the last straw for Polish democracy?
Coronavirus in Poland still bears the hallmarks of novelty, curiosity, or even a kind of ludic or fun phenomenon. At the same time, in other countries these reactions have already been replaced by completely different emotions.
The left wing has been continuously been getting caught in semantic traps, which it actually set itself. Equality and political correctness seem to run around in a vicious circle. Meanwhile, freedom of speech and civil liberties fall victim to this endless struggle.
As of January 2020, 80 different declarations of “LGBT-free zones” were passed by various Polish cities and provinces in central and south-east parts of the country, including four voivedoships, the highest level of administrative subdivision in Poland.
Many labor market regulations were created with large mid-20th century manufacturing plants in mind – which is the spirit of the Polish Labor Code of 1974. However, along with the process of industrial automation as well as the growth of employment in services, the economic reality has changed.
The liberal order is still a relatively young system by and large. Over millennia before the industrial revolution and the ascendancy of liberal ideas did tribalism of some sort or the other prevail. The legacy of liberal order is undeniably impressive.
The Visegrád Cooperation is not nearly as united and indissoluble as the Hungarian Government wishes to present it. Member states often have conflicting interests which are pursued to the detriment of each other and cooperation.
Paweł Kukiz can be considered as a typical product of “post-politics”, one of many types in the gallery of populists. Somewhere between Beppe Grillo, Thierry Baudet, Vladimir Zelensky, and Joseph Estrada. He is the symptom of the times we live in.
