1. His political party is on the fringes of the left, advocating for very high taxation (reaching 55% at income >= $63k/yr, 75% at >= $125k) - this combined with the general Polish lack of trust towards politicians (and our ~20-ish% total income tax loopholes) practically guarantees that they won't ever get any real power.
2. Current government openly admitted to spying on the opposition and introduced an anti-abortion law that already killed a couple women, as hospitals decide to play it safe and wait until the fetus dies. And they dismantled the separation of powers. And probably already stole hundreds of millions of dollars, with independent investigations confirming at least tens. Our politics are so messed up that absolutely no one will bat an eye at a 7 years old non-PC joke.
Read question: I am baffled by the democracy situation in Poland. How can the situation be explained to outsiders?
When I was a child in the United States, Lech Wałęsa regularly celebrated as a hero by helping to lead Poland into democracy as head of the trade union Solidarity/Solidarność. I always felt he was "Une Hacker Originale" by forming a worker's union in a (nominally) Communist state! It was like they back-doored a democratic institution into a unfree state. Amazing stuff to read about.
If you have an absolute majority (which PiS was the first to achieve in 2015 and 2019), you can do anything. And if people protest, you can just wait them out - since 1991, only trade unions can announce paid strikes, their membership is dwindling and the largest one (Solidarity) became a puppet of the Law and Justice party.
> was "Une Hacker Originale" by forming a worker's union in a (nominally) Communist state
nah he was just a puppet/poster boy for a good story. The real reason why communism fail in Poland were:
- coup d'etat by deep state. General Kiszczak did an excellent job. System has changed without a bloody revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Kiszczak
- communism was inefficient. Trading barier made it worse. As a result Soviet Union was weak and didn't have enough influence to keep the system stable.
- Kissinger managed to convince China to counter Soviet Union. In 1969 they had to throw and enormous resources at the border.
2. Current government openly admitted to spying on the opposition and introduced an anti-abortion law that already killed a couple women, as hospitals decide to play it safe and wait until the fetus dies. And they dismantled the separation of powers. And probably already stole hundreds of millions of dollars, with independent investigations confirming at least tens. Our politics are so messed up that absolutely no one will bat an eye at a 7 years old non-PC joke.