Polish ruling party suspends politician after “elite” golf course tweet

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has suspended a senior regional politician after after she posted a photo of herself playing on “the best golf course in Poland” and boasted of being part of the “elite”, in contrast with the opposition, who prefer the “common” game of football.

Małgorzata Jacyna-Witt “by the decision of PiS Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński has today been suspended from her rights as a member of PiS”, announced Krzysztof Sobolewski, the party’s secretary general and himself a noted football fan. He added that Kaczyński has ordered disciplinary proceedings for Jacyna-Witt.

In a since-deleted tweet, Jacyna-Witt, head of the PiS caucus in the Western Pomerania provincial assembly, had posted a picture of herself playing golf along with a jibe aimed at members of the opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, some of whom, including party leader Donald Tusk, are known as keen footballers.

“All right there, boys from Civic Platform? Are you still knocking a common ball around?” she asked. “And I, with Law and Justice at the best golf course in Poland and one of the best three in Europe, am knocking a golf ball around with a handicap of 13.5 like Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ivanka Trump and her husband.”

In the ensuing discussion, she responded to accusations of snobbery by writing to conservative political blogger Katarzyna Sadło (who writes under the pseudonym Kataryna): “I am the elite, and you are the ‘pseudo-elite’”.

In other tweets on her “elite” status, she declared that she “reads books and goes to the theatre” and that “to play golf you have to be intelligent”.

Her remarks prompted widespread criticism – from opposition figures and commentators, but also some within her own party – with many noting that they came at a time when Poles are struggling amid the highest inflation for 25 years.

“This is a statement that is alien to me and should not be made,” said government spokesman Piotr Müller, quoted by Wirtualna Polska. “We unequivocally distance ourselves from it. One should not speak in such a way.”

“You have to have some nerve to pose on the golf course while Poles are wondering how to pay their bills” and to “laugh at the most popular sport in Poland”, wrote Adam Traczyk, deputy head of Global.Lab, a progressive think tank.

Marek Belka, a former prime minister and now an opposition MEP, sarcastically tweeted: “’They have no bread, let them play golf’ – PiS’s Marie Antoinette”.

Following the criticism, Jacyna-Witt tweeted that she “wholeheartedly apologises to everybody I insulted with my message about my game of golf. It was not my aim to get above myself or ‘put on airs’.”

Following today’s announcement that she was suspended from the party, she told local news outlet 24Kurier that she “accepts Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński’s decision with understanding. Law and Justice is guided by high standards and principles of decency”.

During his political career, Kaczyński had often declared his aim to remove the old “post-communist elites” and replace then with a “new elite”. However, speaking in 2019 he made clear that this new elite “does not consider itself better, but wants to serve” the country.

Jacyna-Witt has often courted controversy with her social media posts. In 2018 she was ordered by a court to apologise to a PO senator after losing a defamation case over a tweet in which she appeared to liken him to “thieves, murderers and rapists”.

Main image credit: Twitter/M Jacyna-Witt

Ben Koschalka

Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.