Half a million Poles took to the streets of Warsaw on Sunday to demonstrate against the populist nationalist government in power, a few months before the autumn legislative elections.
“The Town Hall considers [la participation] 500,000 at the moment,” Jan Grabiec, spokesman for the organizers of the march, which appears to be the largest in this country since the fall of communism in 1989, told AFP.
Coming from all over Poland, the demonstrators – sporting the white and red Polish colors and those of the European Union – answered the call of the leader of the main centrist opposition party, the former head of the European Council Donald Tusk. They want to protest against “the high cost of living, cheating and lying, in favor of democracy, free elections and the European Union”.
The leaders of the majority of opposition parties have encouraged their supporters to join the big march against the populist nationalist ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, its leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and its allies.
“That’s enough!”, “We don’t want an authoritarian Poland”, “The PiS is expensive”, proclaimed placards directed against the majority in power in Poland for almost eight years, as the legislative elections approach. scheduled for the fall.
With white and red hearts plastered to their chests, officials led the march, accompanied by the legendary leader of the first free trade union in the communist world in the 1980s Lech Walesa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.
In a brief inaugural speech, Mr Tusk stressed that the opposition’s mission is “comparable in importance” to that of the 1980s and the fight against communism at the time.
Long absent from the political scene, Mr. Walesa said he had waited “patiently” for the day when the nationalist party and its leader Kaczynski will have to go. “Mr. Kaczynski, we came to get you. This day has arrived,” said Mr. Walesa.
The date of the demonstration, which the opposition considers a decisive moment in its march towards an eventual electoral victory, is that of 34e anniversary of the first partially free elections in Poland, which precipitated the fall of communism in Europe.