Polish opposition leader Tusk’s award at feminist congress stirs controversy

Opposition leader Donald Tusk has been presented with an award by Poland’s largest annual feminist congress, with organisers praising him for developing a “better understanding of gender equality”.

The decision has, however, stirred controversy, with a number of feminist voices pointing to Tusk’s mixed record on women’s rights while previously in office as prime minister. They argue that his recent stronger stance is motivated by his political interests in ousting a conservative government that has provoked mass protests by women.

The 14th annual Women’s Congress (Kongres Kobiet) finished in Wrocław yesterday with the presentation of two awards. One went to Halina Radacz, who this year became the first woman in Poland’s largest Protestant church to be ordained as a priest.

The other – a special award for men who have contributed to equality, being given for the first time – went to Tusk, the leader of the centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s largest opposition party.

“Initially, he did not understand the importance of gender equality…[but] it got better,” said Małgorzata Fuszara, chair of the Women’s Congress Association council (and who served as the government’s commissioner for equal treatment from 2014 to 2015 after being appointed by then Prime Minister Tusk), quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.

Fuszara noted that, as prime minister, Tusk supported quotas for women on electoral lists, state funding for in vitro fertilisation, and the ratification of the Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women, while more recently he has declared support for same-sex civil unions and abortion on demand.

By contrast, under the current national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, a near-total ban on abortion has been introduced, state funding for IVF ended, and the justice minister has called for Poland to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention.

Accepting the award, Tusk said that he understands it not as a “thank you” but as a sign of “expectation” for future action, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “I take that very seriously.”

The PO leader added that it is “very sad and embarrassing that there must be congresses of women in Poland demanding fundamental rights”, reports Polsat News. He “appealed to all men” to seek to address this.

Tusk likened the situation in Poland under PiS to that in Russia and Iran, where there are also governments that claim to reject “evil, harmful, rotten [ideas] from the West”, such as equality.

While the situation in Poland is not as bad as in those places, we “also have a pocket ayatollah from Nowogrodzka who says exactly the same things”, he said, referring to Jarosław Kaczyński, the chairman of PiS, whose party headquarters are on Nowogrodzka street in Warsaw.

Tusk then referred to two women – Iza and Agnieszka – who recently died in Polish hospitals following complications with their pregnancies. Many have blamed the near-total ban on abortion in Poland for their deaths, including Tusk, who last year accused PiS of “selling itself to a religious sect”.

Until recently, PO supported maintaining the abortion law that existed before the near-total ban, which was already one of the strictest in Europe. But Tusk recently softened that stance, announcing that only supporters of abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy would be allowed to stand as election candidates for the party.

The fact that this position was only adopted by Tusk and PO recently, and not when they were in power from 2007 to 2015, prompted many to express scepticism about the decision by the Women’s Congress to give him an award.

Marta Woźniak, a journalist from the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, called it a “mockery” that “a few months of promises were enough” for Tusk to be honoured.

Is this “an award for reading polls?” asked Magda Biejat, an MP from The Left (Lewica). “This award is because Tusk suddenly became a supporter of abortion when it is politically profitable,” added Blanka Aleksowska, a journalist.

Opinion polling has shown growing support in Poland for abortion on demand and LGBT rights such as same-sex civil partnerships.

There was also ridicule of Tusk’s award from the ruling camp. Petros Tovmasyan, deputy leader of the Republican Party – a coalition partner of PiS – noted that Tusk’s government raised the retirement age for women to 67 (a decision later reversed by PiS, which brought it down to 60).

Main image credit: Tomasz Pietrzyk / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.