Polish ruling party unveils referendum question to let “ordinary Poles” not “German politicians” decide

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has unveiled the first of four questions it wants to put to the public in a national referendum. The remaining questions will be revealed day by day over the next three days.

PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński says that the referendum will allow “ordinary Poles” to decide what happens in their country rather than “German politicians”, who are trying to install opposition leader Donald Tusk in power.

In June, Kaczyński announced that PiS would seek to hold a referendum on the EU’s proposed migration pact, which the Polish government is opposed to. In July, PiS pushed through legislation allowing the referendum to be held at the same time as this autumn’s parliamentary elections.

The referendum itself has not yet been called, with parliament set to consider the issue later this month. Nevertheless, PiS today published a video featuring Kaczyński unveiling the first of four questions the party wants to ask the public to vote on.

While up to now the idea of the referendum has been linked to the EU migration pact, the question announced today is on a completely different topic: “Do you support the sale of state-owned enterprises?”

“For us, the voice of ordinary Poles is always decisive,” said Kaczyński. “The voice of foreign politicians, including German ones, does not have any meaning.”

“Germany wants to install Tusk in Poland in order to sell off our common property,” added the PiS chairman. “We cannot agree to this. You will decide if the property of generations will remain in Polish hands.” PiS has regularly accused Germany of seeking to interfere in Polish affairs and of using Tusk to achieve this.

Opposition politicians and many commentators, however, immediately accused PiS of hypocrisy, noting that the government last year agreed the sale of state-owned energy assets – including a 30% stake in Poland’s only oil refinery – to Saudi Arabia’s Aramco and MOL of Hungary.

“A few months ago, [state energy firm] Orlen quietly, without a tender, sold significant parts of Lotos [another state energy firm] to the Saudis and Hungarians for a song,” tweeted economist Jakub Karnowski. “Now Kaczyński wants to ask ‘ordinary Poles’ whether they support ‘the sale of state-owned enterprises’.”

PiS figures, however, claim that, when Tusk was prime minister from 2007-14, he oversaw the privation of over 1,000 Polish firms. “Tusk’s plan was to privatise everything that moves,” wrote digital affairs minister Janusz Cieszyński. “The PiS government is about building national champions.”

Many commentators have also criticised PiS’s referendum plans as a way of boosting turnout among the ruling party’s electorate on polling day.

“This whole referendum will be one big money laundering [operation] for PiS’s election campaign,” tweeted Tomasz Trela, an MP from opposition party The Left (Lewica).

A former chairman of Poland’s electoral commission, Wojciech Hermeliński, also criticised the conceptualisation of PiS’s question. Referendums should focus on specific issues rather than general policy directions, he told broadcaster TVN24.

But the head of PiS’s parliamentary caucus, Ryszard Terlecki, said that criticism of the referendum simply shows that “the opposition pseudo-democrats are terrified of democracy”.

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Main image credit: PiS/Twitter (screenshot)

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.