Parliamentary elections 2023. Jarosław Kaczyński, president of PiS, in Jasionka about the Civic Platform, Donald Tusk

President of Law and Justice Jaroslaw Kaczynski took part in the electoral convention in Jasionka near Rzeszów. – It is understandable that all active politicians and Poles ask themselves questions. Questions relating to these fundamental decisions. Should I vote? How to vote? Also in electionsas well as in the referendum, he said. – Indeed, I want to encourage everyone to make these decisions. First the preliminary one, to vote at all, and then also the subsequent ones. But while the initial one should result simply from this sense of civic obligation, the subsequent ones have, one might say, a different justification, and that is what I wanted to talk about, he added.

Candidates for the Sejm in districts – who can you vote for?

Kaczyński said that “in recent days we have been dealing with such a surprising, although perhaps not so surprising, phenomenon.” – In many points, not in all of course, but civil Platform agrees with us. It even took over our slogan “a safe future for Poles”, at least that’s what Tusk claims, he continued. – That’s right, he organizes some meetings, sometimes with foresters, and sometimes with some other employees, and basically it goes in the same direction, for example, that forests cannot be privatized – he said. The PiS president thus referred to the issue of privatization of the State Forests during the rule of the PO-PSL coalition.

– Ladies and Gentlemen, I myself was in charge – in fact, I was a representative in the Sejm, because I was an MP, and the members of this committee were not MPs, in this sense I was a representative of the committee – which fought on behalf of foresters against forest privatization. It was during their rule, but it was true. That’s how it was, ladies and gentlemen, he said.

– But this is just a specific case, after all, anyone can change their mind. But there is another question. Can he actually change his mind? Is such a change of opinion, general, general, relating to the entire program, what Poland should be like, what the fate of Poland and Poles should be like, possible in their case? Well, it’s not possible, said the PiS leader. He stated that “they have and must have a completely different program than the one we have.” – Because it results from their entanglements, it is not only a conclusion from what they did before, but also a conclusion from a slightly deeper, although not a very deep, analysis, because such analysis is not needed in this case – he said.

– First of all, the assumption of the whole idea – they call this idea a project – which was the basis for the establishment of the Civic Platform, was the assumption that, firstly, a certain social system has been formed in our country, where is this mountain, this mountain that has become stronger, it enriched and divided among itself a large part of the national wealth, starting from the end of the 1980s. It comes largely from the communist nomenklatura, although, of course, others came and this is the main force. It also has its own special, very influential groups, for example people from the former communist secret services. You have to live well with all of them. You can say that you have to come to an agreement with them. This is the first assumption, Kaczyński said at the election convention in Jasionka.

The PiS president also touched on topics related to foreign policy. He talked about Poland’s neighbors. – In the west, Germany. They are very strong economically, although weak militarily. Today, even very weak militarily. And on the other side there is Russia, which is economically a large economy, although a weak one, a Third World one, but militarily it is actually strong. Although not as strong as thought. War in Ukraine this shows – said Jarosław Kaczyński. As the head of PiS said, “we need to reach an understanding with these countries, but especially with Germany, within the framework of the current realities.”

– Tusk said “we want a reset with Russia as it is”, and yet it was after the war in Chechnya, after a war during which many terrible crimes were committed. After many other crimes. Anyone who wanted to know what Russia is like, what the nature of Putin’s power and, in general, the entire group that rules Russia, could have no doubts about it – Kaczyński pointed out.

Jarosław Kaczyński stated that Donald Tusk “nor could he have any doubts about Germany.” – If you look at it objectively, and not as part of trying to convince yourself that things are different than they are, how did the Germans accept us and how did we regain independence? You may not remember it, especially the younger ones, but the first problem was the recognition of borders. They did not want to recognize our borders. They did not want to, although already in 1953 the then Chancellor Adenauer received a letter from Churchill, then again the Prime Minister of Great Britain, from Eisenhover that the Polish borders, the western ones, were inviolable and that they should not think that they could ever change them. Already then, argued the president of Law and Justice.

Kaczyński assessed that Germany’s attitude towards Poland did not change after 1989, when the United States, Great Britain, and perhaps to a lesser extent France, all firmly claimed that these borders were inviolable. But they didn’t want to acknowledge it.” – If you don’t believe it, read Kohl’s own memoirs. He admits it precisely. Of course, they didn’t want to hear about reparations. They didn’t want to hear about any settlement at all. They didn’t want to hear about many in Germany, Poles received the right of a national minority. I repeat: this was the starting point and anyone who analyzed it coldly must have realized that this is also a country with not the best intentions towards us, said Jarosław Kaczyński.

According to the PiS president, Germany “finally had to recognize these borders, because in relation to the United States, together with its strongest allies, they are simply no power.” – Don’t judge, because maybe many people believe that they are some kind of world power. No, they are a regionally strong state, nothing more. The times of a world superpower are long gone, although they would like to return to them, Kaczyński said.

The PiS president also said that “a nation that – being economically quite strong – agrees not to be independent, is a very strange nation, it is a nation of people who have very bad genes.”

– Because if various countries, much smaller ones, somewhere in the third world, are independent countries, then we are supposed to be a dependent country? Are we supposed to be a state to which various matters are dictated, that even under communism these first secretaries could do more than Tusk as prime minister? That’s how it was, he had to agree to everything, argued the PiS president. He added that “this is what is at stake in this election.”

The President of Law and Justice assessed that the PO government would not be able to protect Poles from crises and referred to the Covid crisis. – Would they be able to give PLN 200 billion to defend jobs? Of course they wouldn’t, because with this policy there would simply be nothing to give. And they wouldn’t. This would mean that there would be a lot of unemployed people in Poland again, a lot of poverty, and in economic terms it would mean that demand would drop. Therefore, there would be less demand for goods. Therefore, production would decline. Therefore, unemployment would increase again. Therefore, this mechanism would repeat itself and everything would go down instead of up, said Kaczyński.

The PiS president stated that “shame pedagogy and national micromania” had been practiced in Poland for years. – Many people from that side say directly that they are ashamed of being Polish, and sometimes I even hear that they are disgusted with Polishness. Let them go to hell, emphasized the PiS president.

– We turned it around. We want to teach patriotism to young Poles at school, he argued.

– We have activated forces in cultural policy that were unable to act before, because there were no means for them if someone wanted to get involved for patriotic, religious, or Judym, old-intelligentsia reasons – said Kaczyński.

– We are simply the only truly Polish force today – Kaczyński continued. – A Polish force that can further change Poland and has proven it during these eight years. And they can continue to prove it, provided that this gigantic lie – the one that allowed them to win in 2007 – will not allow them to win again. Don’t believe in these lies, in these fairy tales, in all these made-up scandals. Believe in the numbers, believe in what can be verified, there are our brochures with these lists. Believe in the strength of Poland, in the strength of Poles – continued the PiS president.

The PiS president said when PiS began to govern that “30 percent of children were at risk of poverty”, and Poland was one of the last places in Europe in this respect. – At the moment it is just over three percent, and perhaps only three percent. And this is why it is really worth ruling, he added.

-It is worth ruling Poland because it gives satisfaction (…) and this beautiful perspective – we can catch up not only with Italy and Spain, but also with England and France, and in a dozen or so years even with Germany. The dream may come true, it may be the success of the millennium, because such a situation has never happened in Poland in the entire millennium – said Kaczyński.