Polish Democracy is in a critical condition.
A couple of years ago the ruling party (PiS) took over the national broadcaster (TVP) to the extent that it is now a state propaganda channel. Now they have attacked the free media by going for TVN who are fairly anti-PiS.
The issue they found with TVN is that it is majority owned by the American Discovery Network and they believe Polish news should be broadcast by Polish owners. This has implications for both the free media and majority foreign ownership of ANY companies in Poland. Much investment has been by multinationals so if the go for the media based on ownership it really does open a can of worms.
Of course the next thing is who will they go for next. Polsat?
So back to the TVN issue. It went to a vote and PiS manipulated the Sejm (Polish Parliament) over TVN's right to transmit and they lost the initial vote by 2 votes. They called for a 15 minute recess, which was barely legal and in that time they found a couple of paragraphs in the law which had a loophole in them (too quick they were prepared) and in the meantime used heavy persuasion on two representatives and voted again. Of course they won the second vote.
It all felt a bit like Palpatine's takeover of the Galactic Senate in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith but not quite as far as Hitler's Enabling Law, but i am sure like he did that they will manufacture an incident like he did.
The only ray of good news is that such blatant manipulation might have alienated some of their base. and in Donald Tusk they finally have a viable opponent. I just hope we get to have another vote before PiS close down democracy all together
Nice to se you back on writing!