The leader of the centrist opposition, Donald Tusk, wanted to organize a “Million Hearts March”, two weeks before the legislative elections.
For the Polish opposition, it is a show of force, two weeks before the legislative elections. According to her, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on Sunday, October 1, at the start of a large anti-government march in the center of Warsaw. A large demonstration of this type had already been organized in the same city at the beginning of June.
“About a million people” demonstrated, even affirmed the Warsaw town hall, led by representatives of the opposition. “This is absolutely the biggest demonstration in the history of Warsaw”Monika Beuth, town hall spokesperson, told AFP.
“When I see these hundreds of thousands of smiling faces, I feel that a decisive moment in the history of our homeland is coming”, launched Donald Tusk, former Prime Minister, at the start of the march. This former president of the European Council became the leader of the centrist Civic Platform (PO) bloc. It was he who named this demonstration the “March of a Million Hearts”.
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This gathering was intended to mobilize people from across the country, which has been governed for eight years by Eurosceptic nationalists. On Sunday, leaders of PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s populist nationalist party, held their own rally in the southern city of Katowice.
The nationalist populist party leads the polls
Despite numerous conflicts with the European Union and accusations of attacks on the rule of law, the PiS maintains a comfortable lead in the polls, with around 35% of voting intentions, according to the polling institute Ibris . The Civic Platform is in second position, supported by 27% of voters, according to the same study.
However, Donald Tusk assures that polls commissioned by his party show that PiS’s lead has recently been reduced to just two percentage points. “Nothing is decided yet”he said, promising to hold the current authorities accountable at the end of the election. “Many of them will go to prison for theft, for violating the law and the Constitution”he insisted.