Poland’s Kaczynski steps into the limelight in government reshuffle

Poland’s Kaczynski steps into the limelight in government reshuffle
By Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw October 1, 2020

Poland’s so far closet leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski is stepping into his first official government position since his Law and Justice (PiS) party won power in the country of 38mn in 2015, the officially presented new line-up of the government confirmed on September 30.

Kaczynski – who, despite being just an MP, has been calling the shots in Polish politics for over five years now – will become a deputy PM in the reshuffled government, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference.

That is seen as possibly weakening the position of the PM himself who will officially head the cabinet, which, observers say, will now naturally pivot to Kaczynski rather than to the PM.

For Kaczynski, the change might also come at a cost, as the government job ends his comfort of being above the fray of three-way wrangling of the coalition of PiS and two smaller parties, United Poland, and Accord.

It was the internal tensions that led to the reshuffle. While small, United Poland and Accord guarantee the much bigger PiS a majority in the parliament, giving them extra leverage in exerting political influence.

PiS’s coalition partners will have two ministers each in the new cabinet line-up. United Poland’s leader Zbigniew Ziobro remains the minister of justice while Accord’s Jaroslaw Gowin is back on the position of deputy PM and minister of development and labour. Each party will also have a minister in the PM’s chancellery.

Controversially, the new minister of education and science will be Przemyslaw Czarnek, a hard-line conservative Catholic, who recently said that “human rights is idiocy” when referring to Poland’s LGBT community’s struggle for equality.

Czarnek is also taking a government position while being subject to his university’s disciplinary proceedings for homophobic remarks. 

Elsewhere, Poland is getting a new minister for agriculture, Grzegorz Puda. He will be a controversial choice for the country’s farmers because of his support for the Kaczynski-proposed law that aims at liquidating fur farms and boosting animal welfare regulations. Farmers, an important part of the PiS's electorate, are protesting against the changes as "deadly threat" to agriculture.

Structurally, the new government will be reduced to 14 ministries from 20. That will be the result of merging the ministry of climate with the ministry of environment. The ministries of science and education, as well as sport and culture, will also merge.

The ministry of finance will take over the ministry of funds and regional policy, responsible for managing EU funding for Poland. 

The ministries of marine economy and digitalisation will be liquidated.

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