Snow did not fall on Warsaw this Christmas, but instead a thick, chilling drift of political anxiety settled on the streets of Poland’s capital. In a country where history is a national obsession, the erection of police barricades around the country’s parliament amid allegations of “autocracy” and political coups, almost exactly 35 years after the declaration of martial law by the then communist regime, sent shivers down many spines.
Poland today is an angry and divided country. In October, the rightwing Law and Justice party won an unprecedented parliamentary majority pledging to roll back the liberal order established by its predecessor.
It has swiftly achieved that through reforms that give it political control over the media, the justice system and the highest court. Its unanointed but unchallenged leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski says he is leading a “cultural counter-revolution” in the mould of Hungary’s “illiberal democracy”. His nationalist supporters are ecstatic. His detractors are either dumbfounded or belligerent.