Yesterday I had a perfectly average day — the details of which I will not bother you with — nicely rounded off with a refreshing ten hours kip. Is this “dignity under pressure”? Am I keeping my head while others all around are losing theirs?
I ask because the signs in Polish are particularly — no, I mean particularly — grim right now. Michnik writes in today’s Gazeta Wyborcza of a “creeping coup” and, reason though he has to dislike the ruling party, he does not sound in the least hysterical. Briefly, Janusz Kaczmarek was arrested. Until August 8th Kaczmarek was the Minister for the Interior and Administration. Before that, he was the “national attorney” (a peculiarity of Poland’s constitution is that the state attorney is also the Minister for Justice – that’s being your own boss).
Kaczmarek has started telling tales about the politicisation and abuse of the secret services, the procurator’s office and the police under the current regime. He has been charged with attempting to obstruct the investigation into the leaking of operational details concerning an unsuccessful attempt by the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) to entrap Andrzej Lepper (former coalition partner).
Another person who had to be shut up was one Konrad Kornatowski, a former police chief, who – entirely coincidentally – had been due to testify before a parliamentary commission into all the skulduggery and shenanigans of the regime. So he was arrested. So was Jaromir Netzel, boss of PZU, one of the biggest insurers in Europe. They’re also out to get businessman Ryszard Krauze but he is fortunate enough to be abroad – possibly in a democracy, I can’t confirm that yet – at the moment.
Meanwhile Primesident Kaczyński appears on television and pretends not to be aware of the details of these perfectly routine police investigations. Ziobro, the boy wonder Minister for Justice, seems to be keeping a low profile, perhaps because he has hopelessly compromised himself time and time again.
On the plus side, the bus timetables in the provincial town where I am holidaying at the moment no longer define summer as lasting till the end of January.