WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s two former presidents led tens of thousands of marchers Saturday in Warsaw to protest the right-wing government’s policies and mark 27 years since the ouster of communism.
The march was yet another in a series organized by a new civic movement, the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, or KOD, against the conservative government that took office in November. The government’s policies have strained Poland’s relations with the European Union and the U.S. and angered many in Poland. But the ruling party insists it has a mandate from Poland’s voters.
The nationalist government has focused on helping those left out of economic growth and increased its grip on state institutions. The moves have paralyzed the nation’s Constitutional Tribunal, put state-owned media under government control and increased police powers.
The EU says Poland’s rule of law and democracy are in danger.
The protests Saturday brought former presidents Aleksander Kwasniewski, a left-winger, and Bronislaw Komorowski, a centrist, together to remind the Poles about their attachment to freedom and to democracy, which they won on June 4, 1989, in an election that peacefully ousted communists from power.
“We want a free Poland because we fought for it, we dreamed about it and we built it,” Komorowski said.
Warsaw authorities said 50,000 people took part. Smaller marches also took place in other Polish cities and in Berlin and Brussels, the E.U. headquarters.
At the ruling Law and Justice party’s regional meeting in Warsaw, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski insisted Saturday that his policies are improving the lives of Poles and protecting Poland’s independence.
Poles have the right to “a new, better shape that would better serve the vast majority of Poles and we will not give that right up,” Kaczynski said Saturday, pounding the podium.
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