Polish President Andrzej Duda on Monday denounced new Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s state media reforms as “anarchy”, a fresh sign that relations between the pro-European government in Warsaw and the PiS leader will be tumultuous, Reuters reported.

The comments by Duda, a former member of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, came a day after the new Tusk government fired the heads of all public TV and radio stations in Poland, saying it wanted to restore their neutrality after years of politicization.

Polish state media, including the public news channel TVP Info, have for years been criticized by the opposition for being propaganda tools for the government, which until recently was led by PiS, a nationalist party that promotes conservative values ​​as well as populist economic measures. . .

The TVP Info show was suspended on Wednesday, exactly a week after the inauguration of a new government led by Donald Tusk, who was also Poland’s prime minister from 2007 to 2014.

Duda accuses Tusk’s government of “illegal actions”

President Andrzej Duda, in an interview with private Radio Zet on Wednesday, charged that the sudden implementation of the changes that Tusk’s coalition wants is against Poland’s Constitution because it was done by bypassing proper parliamentary procedures.

“These are completely illegal actions. This is anarchy,” he condemned.

PiS lawmakers left the plenary hall on Thursday after their bid to hold a debate on proposed changes to public radio and television stations was rejected by the parliamentary majority formed around Tusk. Some PiS parliamentarians demonstrated in front of the headquarters of targeted media on Wednesday evening to express their solidarity with their leaders.

“It was a protest vote against what Mr. Sienkiewicz, the Minister of Culture, did,” Marcin Pshidach, one of the PiS MPs, said on Thursday after leaving the plenary session. He also said that changes in government positions must be made through laws that must be approved by both houses of parliament and then promulgated by the president.

“The coalition of liberal liberals believes that they are so powerful that they should not respect the law,” Przydach also accused.

Poland is preparing for turbulent political coexistence

Instead, Tusk called the changes aimed at “restoring legal order and common sense in public life” and that Duda should expect an “ironclad” decision from his coalition on the issue.

The new government holds the president responsible for numerous violations of the Constitution during the years of PiS rule. For example, shortly after PiS came to power in 2015, Duda pardoned Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik, who were convicted of abuse of power when they ran the anti-corruption agency in Warsaw.

The pardon allowed Kaminski to become interior minister and spared him the need to appeal a lower court ruling. Vasik was appointed his deputy in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Lawyers questioned Duda’s decision, some were skeptical about the legality of pardoning Kaminsky before the judiciary makes a final and irreversible decision in his case. President Duda’s decision was widely criticized by the opposition as politically motivated.

A huge political scandal in Warsaw

The Constitutional Court, which PiS critics say has been heavily politicized under the nationalist government, ruled in June this year that Kaminski’s pardon falls under the president’s prerogative, thus sparing the ruling party the need to replace one of its most important ministers in an election year.

But a few days later, the Supreme Court of Poland ruled that the abuse of power case should be reopened.

This Wednesday, the Court of Appeal in Warsaw sentenced Kaminski and Maciej Vasik to two years in prison. Two more persons involved in the anti-corruption department were sentenced to one year in prison. Despite the fact that the court’s decision is final, both have not yet been arrested.

“I told them that if they were jailed, they would be the first political prisoners in Poland since 1989,” Duda said Thursday of the two’s convictions.

However, Szymon Holovnia, the speaker of the Polish parliament, revoked their mandates on Thursday, a decision also condemned by PiS, which says it “must be made clear that the decision is political in nature” and “has no legal basis”.