Post by Ada on Dec 30, 2016 14:05:47 GMT -4
There is no reason to dissolve parliament, the head of the parliamentary caucus of Poland's governing Law and Justice (PiS) party Ryszard Terlecki has said, amid a simmering political crisis.
Terlecki was referring to statements made by Ryszard Petru, the head of the opposition Nowoczesna (Modern) party, who said that if parliament does not continue debating the 2017 budget during the next sitting on 11 January, there will be “no choice but to dissolve the parliament”.
Opposition MPs have been staging a sit-in protest in parliament's plenary hall since 16 December, when PiS MPs and a handful of opposition MPs voted through the budget bill.
The protesting parties have called the vote illegal, while PiS says that both the decision to hold the vote in an ancillary room, and the vote itself were in line with regulations. They have also denied that there is any reason to repeat the vote.
On Wednesday, PiS's Terlecki told the private TVN broadcaster that the request to dissolve parliament is an attempt by the opposition “to generate noise on television”.
“The opposition clearly sees that they have no chance of winning an election, if one were to be called, so in frustration by the fact that there are no other prospects than to remain in opposition until the end of the term, [the opposition parties are] trying to destabilise the situation so as to give the impression that the government is unable to control the situation in the country,” Terlecki said.
He added that these recent events are “a little like an operatic coup”.
Terlecki was referring to statements made by Ryszard Petru, the head of the opposition Nowoczesna (Modern) party, who said that if parliament does not continue debating the 2017 budget during the next sitting on 11 January, there will be “no choice but to dissolve the parliament”.
Opposition MPs have been staging a sit-in protest in parliament's plenary hall since 16 December, when PiS MPs and a handful of opposition MPs voted through the budget bill.
The protesting parties have called the vote illegal, while PiS says that both the decision to hold the vote in an ancillary room, and the vote itself were in line with regulations. They have also denied that there is any reason to repeat the vote.
On Wednesday, PiS's Terlecki told the private TVN broadcaster that the request to dissolve parliament is an attempt by the opposition “to generate noise on television”.
“The opposition clearly sees that they have no chance of winning an election, if one were to be called, so in frustration by the fact that there are no other prospects than to remain in opposition until the end of the term, [the opposition parties are] trying to destabilise the situation so as to give the impression that the government is unable to control the situation in the country,” Terlecki said.
He added that these recent events are “a little like an operatic coup”.
Overall the main issue is that the opposition MPs occupied the main parlaiment hall, intending to prevent the ruling majority MPs from voting on the budget bill for 2017.
The ruling majority (and the Kukiz15 opposition party) gathered in an adjacent room and voted the bill there. The ruling party alone had have enough votes to pass the bill.
Failing to vote the bill could spark some sort of government collapse, but this of course did not happen.
There's also been a big conflict over a new bill that would limit the pensions of fomer communist secret police members to the "national average" height. Up till now they often received pensions 3-4 times higher than a factory worker. This bill has now been passed and signed by the president.
Perosnal opinion:
The current goverment made some errors, but I do think the decommunisation of pensions was long overdue, especially as the secret police were responsible for curbing human rights and the freedom of speach before 1989.
I also think physically blocking the main parlaiment hall and occupying it for weeks is pretty childish and does not in any way improve the standards of Polish democracy. The opposition keeps talking about dangers to democracy, but by this sort of obstructive action theya ren't doing democracy any favors.