Half a million Poles took to the streets of Warsaw on Sunday to demonstrate against the populist nationalist government in power just months before parliamentary elections in the autumn.
“The city hall is checking [la participation] “Right now it’s 500,000,” Jan Grabiec, spokesman for organizers of the march, which appears to be the largest in this country since the fall of communism in 1989, told AFP.
Coming from across Poland, the protesters – wearing the white and red colors of Poland and the European Union – answered the call of the leader of the main centrist opposition party, former European Council President Donald Tusk. They want to protest against “the high cost of living, fraud and lies, in favor of democracy, free elections and the European Union”.
The leaders of the majority of the opposition parties have encouraged their supporters to join the grand march against the populist nationalist ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and their allies.
“That’s enough!”, “We don’t want an authoritarian Poland”, “PiS is expensive” proclaimed posters directed against the majority in power in Poland for almost eight years, as parliamentary elections scheduled for autumn drew nearer.
Wearing white and red hearts on their chests, the 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 1983 Nobel Peace Prize.
In a brief inaugural speech, Mr. Tusk stressed that the opposition’s mission was “of comparable importance” to that of the 1980s and the fight against communism at the time.
Long absent from the political stage, Mr Walesa said he has been “patiently” waiting for the day when the Nationalist Party and its leader Kaczynski must go. “Mr. Kaczynski, we came to pick you up. That day has come,” said Mr Walesa.
The date of the protest, which the opposition sees as a turning point on its path to eventual election victory, is the 34th anniversary of Poland’s first partially free elections that brought about the fall of communism in Europe.