Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk subjected himself to the “most spectacular castration in history” by backing an attempt to oust the conservative-linked leadership of the country’s Constitutional Tribunal, lawmaker Lukasz Mejza has said.
Poland’s long-simmering constitutional crisis erupted into open confrontation last Friday, when Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, a judge elected by Tusk’s pro-EU governing majority, ordered the suspension of the tribunal’s president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and his deputy, Bartlomiej Sochanski, both linked to the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Korwin-Piotrowska claimed the role of acting head of the court, prompting accusations of an attempted coup, and resulting in street protests and a heavy police deployment around the courthouse. Both the court’s current leadership and right-wing President Karol Nawrocki, who later pushed past judges at the tribunal’s entrance, rejected her authority.
Tusk, who was president of the European Council from 2014 to 2019, said the showdown was necessary to restore judicial independence, criticizing earlier PiS reforms and Nawrocki’s refusal to administer the oath to five Constitutional Tribunal judges elected by the current parliamentary majority. He also accused an “army of Russian bots” of supporting his opponents, without providing evidence.
Addressing parliament on Thursday, Mejza, an independent MP who was previously part of the PiS faction, claimed Tusk tried to become a Soviet-style dictator but ended up as a “Ceausescu from Temu,” referring to Romania’s former communist leader and a Chinese online discounter.
“You have accomplished the greatest logistical feat in world history: Overnight, you moved Poland from Central Europe to Central Africa,” Mejza said.
He went on to call Tusk’s actions “the most spectacular castration in history, because you staged a coup d’état and simultaneously stripped yourself of your manhood and any shred of honor,” warning the prime minister that the “time of reckoning will come, sooner than you think.”
On Friday, Polish MPs unfurled a large ‘Tusk = Dictator’ banner during a visit by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola to the parliament. Lawmakers also displayed English-language placards accusing the prime minister of staging a coup. Tusk ridiculed the protest, saying his opponents “will start singing and selling watches in a moment,” in reference to previous demonstrations.
More than a week into the stand-off, the crisis remains unresolved, although Tusk’s coalition partners proposed a sweeping “constitutional reset,” which would see the termination of the terms of all current tribunal judges and the appointment of an entirely new bench through a constitutional amendment.
However, both Tusk’s Civic Coalition and PiS have expressed skepticism about the proposal, for opposing reasons. The Civic Coalition says there is no reason to dismiss judges recently elected by its parliamentary majority, while PiS refuses to negotiate with those it accuses of staging a coup.