-- 300 POLITYKA AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS TOGETHER SUPPORT THE 'BRAVO FOR YOU' CAMPAIGN, SUPPORTING HEALTHCARE WORKERS: On the occasion of the upcoming World Health Day, on April 7th at 1:00 PM, let's thank healthcare workers together. We succeeded once before with the 'Bravo for You' campaign. Let's show that we still remember and are grateful to them. "Bravo for You" is an unprecedented joint campaign by the biggest press titles in Poland! https://www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/polska/koronawirus-brawa-dla-was-podziekujmy-lekarzom/13l1e4s -- MAUNDY TUESDAY – in Christian liturgy, the third day of Holy Week, on which Christians hear the announcement of Judas' betrayal and Peter's denial. -- Photo: The Betrayal of Judas – Giotto. Fresco by Giotto di Bondone in Padua. One of 40 frescoes painted by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel, belonging to the cycle of scenes from the life of Jesus. “The depiction of the betrayal scene is on the left side of the triumphal arch in the Arena Chapel. In interpreting this Gospel event, Giotto does not depart from his favorite way of communicating everything that happens, aiming for the highest clarity and credibility. Behind the traitor, a silhouette of a devil is shown, literally pushing him to commit the impious act. At the same time, this pictorial motif is visually perceived as a kind of shadow cast by the figure of Judas. Simultaneously, the caricatured profile of a feature appears as a kind of grotesque repetition, an ugly echo of the profile of Judas Iscariot himself, who receives thirty pieces of silver from the high priests.” https://pl.painting-planet.com/zdrada-judasza-giotto/ -- EVERYONE HAS THEIR MOTTO: THE THIRD REPUBLIC CANNOT BE DONE, THE FOURTH REPUBLIC - WE CAN MANAGE - JACEK KARNOWSKI: “Elections within the constitutional deadline also cannot be held. It simply cannot be done. Everyone has their motto. The Fourth Republic: 'We'll manage!', and the Third Republic: 'Nothing can be done'. The sources of these vastly different attitudes are deep. One is spiritually from free Poland, imperfect but believing in itself, the others from the partitions, with an internalized helplessness towards the challenges of this world.” -- KARNOWSKI'S LIST OF THINGS THAT CANNOT BE DONE: “Polish shipyards cannot be saved. It simply cannot be done. LOT cannot be saved. It simply cannot be done. Millions of young Poles cannot be prevented from emigrating. It simply cannot be done. The demographic crisis cannot be fought. It simply cannot be done. The Smolensk investigation cannot be left to the Russians. It simply cannot be done. Germany and Brussels cannot be opposed on any matter. It simply cannot be done. The Vistula Spit cannot be dredged. It simply cannot be done.” https://wpolityce.pl/m/polityka/494693-motto-iv-rp-damy-rade-motto-iii-rp-nie-da-sie -- EMILEWICZ ON THE STATE OF NATURAL DISASTER, ANTI-ABORTION LAW IN THE SEJM NEXT WEEK - 300LIVE: https://300polityka.pl/live/2020/04/07/ -- RAFAŁ KALUKIN ON THE SCENARIO OF A STATE OF EMERGENCY WITH THE SUPREME COURT SITUATION IN THE BACKGROUND STILL BEING POSSIBLE: “Apparently, Nowogrodzka – contrary to official assurances – is quite intensively considering the option of introducing a state of emergency, which would mean postponing the elections. However, it won't be announced earlier than the beginning of May. This is because the term of the First President of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Gersdorf, expires at the end of April, and if any state of emergency were introduced before that date, it would have to be postponed. And since there is no possibility of electing a new president under current conditions, a compliant commissioner could be appointed temporarily to replace Gersdorf.” -- KOSINIAK ON THE RISE - KALUKIN CONTINUES: “Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz is on the rise today. Unlike other opposition candidates, the presidential elections on May 10th would be convenient for him. Defeating Andrzej Duda in current conditions is unlikely, but according to current polls, distancing other candidates, with Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska at the forefront, would strengthen the personal position of the leader of the Peasants' Party and his entire formation. This would give Kosiniak-Kamysz significant negotiation leverage in any future scenario.” -- KALUKIN ON COVERING TRACKS AND DIVERTING ATTENTION: “The political chaos is justified, although it is not difficult to notice that PiS, controlling the political situation in the country, consistently tries to deepen the confusion. With increasingly bizarre political concepts, legislative insertions, and – who knows – perhaps also staged splits or future alliances. After all, Kaczyński's formation, which has ruthlessly exploited the fight against the pandemic and recession for its own electoral purposes from the very beginning, has particular reasons to cover its tracks and divert attention from the essence of its actions. It is worth keeping this in mind.” https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1951644,1,w-co-gra-gowin-i-jakie-furtki-otworzyl-sobie-kaczynski.read -- THE FINAL ELECTION DATE CANNOT BE DETERMINED TODAY - MARCIN FIJOŁEK: “We are facing 30 days of chaos unlike anything we've seen in Polish politics before. Unless Minister Szumowski or Prime Minister Morawiecki decide to end this situation with negative recommendations or by introducing a state of natural disaster. The stability of the United Right camp is also highly questionable, but that's a topic for later, after the pandemic. For now, Jadwiga Emilewicz will simply take over the position of Deputy Prime Minister, and one of Gowin's deputies will likely take over the leadership of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The political turbulence is truly significant, the dynamics are considerable, and we cannot definitively state today either the final election date or the majority in government. Not to mention the state of the epidemic.” https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/494603-co-dalej-po-dymisji-wicepremiera-gowina -- THE UNITED RIGHT PROJECT IS OVER - ANDRZEJ STANKIEWICZ IN TYGODNIK POWSZECHNY: “It must be said clearly: the moment of crisis, the emotions of the main players, and the final solution show that the United Right is a project that is already politically over, although the divorce formalities may still take time.” https://www.tygodnikpowszechny.pl/gowin-odchodzi-ale-zostaje-163000 -- CONTRARY TO APPEARANCES, GOWIN'S VICTORY IS MORE PROBABLE THAN KACZYŃSKI'S - DOMINIKA WIELOWIEYSKA: “Contrary to appearances, Gowin's political victory in this round is more probable than Kaczyński's. (...) In reality, Gowin holds Kaczyński hostage. He has already shown his strength: due to the rebellion of Gowin's MPs, PiS failed to include an amendment to the electoral code in the agenda on Monday. The whole of Poland saw a crack in the ruling camp. The authority of PiS's leader has been questioned. Kaczyński said that the postal elections would take place on May 10th, and Jarosław Gowin said they would not. Even if Kaczyński's announcement is fulfilled, the political cost for PiS will be enormous. If, on the other hand, Gowin prevails, it means he is stronger than Kaczyński.” -- WIELOWIEYSKA ON THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS FOR GOWIN'S PLAN B: “She believes that Plan B is still possible: in the second half of April, while the amendment passed by the Sejm is still being processed in the Senate, the government will introduce a state of natural disaster, which will automatically postpone the elections. And then Gowin's MPs will help PiS reject the changes introduced by the Senate. In elections held at a later date – if the number of infections remains significant – postal voting can be used. Indeed, with such a calculation, Gowin's political victory is more probable than Kaczyński's.” https://wyborcza.pl/7,75968,25849414,zlapal-kaczynski-gowina-a-gowin-za-leb-trzyma.html -- FROM THIS MOMENT ON, WE WILL COUNT THE MOMENT OF DECOMPOSITION - JAKUB MAJMUREK IN WP: “April 6, 2020, will go down in the history of Polish parliamentarism and the history of the Law and Justice party. Perhaps future historians of this formation will count the beginning of the decomposition of Kaczyński's camp from this day. Because although in the end, a few minutes after 10 PM, Kaczyński got what he wanted – the law enabling exclusively postal voting in May – his victory may turn out to be Pyrrhic. The PiS leader won the battle at great cost, a victory that may cost him a lot strategically.” -- MAJMUREK ON A POLITICAL CRISIS UNKNOWN SINCE THE 1980S: “Victory will sooner or later cost Jarosław Kaczyński dearly. Especially if the leader does not back down from the idea of elections in May. The nonsensical setup and waste of time can somehow be explained to voters. Organizing widely contested elections, plunging the Polish political system into a crisis unknown since the 1980s, is more difficult. Especially when people are literally losing their livelihoods and the last thing they expect from the authorities are such partisan squabbles.” -- DUDA WILL DEFEAT JAKUBIAK, ZERO LEGITIMACY AND QUESTIONABLE ELECTION - MAJMUREK CONTINUES: “Even if, by some miracle, the logistics don't fail, all serious opposition candidates will probably withdraw from such elections. Andrzej Duda will defeat Marek Jakubiak with historically low turnout, far below 50%. The legitimacy of a president elected in this way, outside of his staunch supporters, will be zero, and his election will be questioned. Such elections are like planting dynamite under the entire Polish political system, and the Polish-Polish dispute will reach a new, previously unknown level of aggression and toxicity. This will ultimately affect the ruling camp as well – although along the way, we will all pay the price of total political conflict and associated instability.” https://opinie.wp.pl/majmurek-pyrrusowe-zwyciestwo-kaczynskiego-opinia-6497097477396097a -- ELECTIONS OUTSIDE THE LAW - RZ's lead story. -- ADAM STRZEMBOSZ ON THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT IN EVALUATING THE VOTING PROCESS - told to RZ: “We also risk the Supreme Court questioning elections that violate the principle of equality and secrecy. They make any control impossible regarding how the relevant body, possibly militarized, qualifies the ballots that would reach the commissions. Where is the room for representatives of political parties? Where is the room for control to ensure that all correspondence is handed over to the right hands? Within a few weeks, no one will develop appropriate procedures. All the effort and risk invested in fighting the pandemic may be wasted because elections under current conditions will violate the principles of a democratic state. The validity of the elections will be determined by the Supreme Court. I hope it will be one that enjoys general respect and trust. The experiences of the pandemic will be discussed in society.” https://www.rp.pl/Opinie/304069883-Adam-Strzembosz-Wielkie-ryzyko-wyborow-korespondencyjnych.html -- THE TIME OF THE SEJM AUTOMATON IS OVER, GOWIN FROM HIS SULEJÓWEK WILL REVIEW - EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RZ: “The thesis that Jarosław Kaczyński crushed the internal opposition in the United Right is becoming worthless. The era of easy votes and the Sejm automaton is over. Jarosław Gowin can now become an important reviewer of the government's policy from his Sulejówek and – if he maintains his authority in Porozumienie – an object of Kaczyński's attention. The issue of the May 10th elections depends to a lesser and lesser extent on the leader's will, but primarily on the virus, because without postal voting, the epidemic in its current version makes them impossible.” -- PIS HAS PROBABLY LOST ANOTHER LINK IN THE LEGISLATIVE CHAIN - CHRABOTA CONTINUES: “Porozumienie has destabilized the situation on the right and is capable of blocking further projects inconsistent with this party's line, such as, for example, the amendment to the electoral code again when it returns from the Senate to the Sejm – probably in May. But something more important is happening. Jarosław Kaczyński – who until Monday morning was the master of the political situation in the country – has probably lost another link in the legislative chain, the Sejm voting machine, after the Senate. At least for now.” https://www.rp.pl/Komentarze/304069892-Chrabota-Sejm-bedzie-juz-inny.html -- DO WE WANT TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE LAW CAN BE SO DISREGARDED? - MICHAŁ SZUŁDRZYŃSKI IN RZ: “Preparing elections based on regulations that have not yet been adopted would be a clear violation of this rule. And even an amendment giving the Marshal of the Sejm the right to postpone elections until May 17th will not change this, because such a decision can only be made ten days earlier. Now we understand why PiS has already introduced a provision stating that a state official exceeding their powers or failing to fulfill their duties during the epidemic will not be held criminally liable for it. The question is, do we want to live in a country where regulations can be disregarded to such an extent? Moreover, on the occasion of such an extremely important procedure for democracy as presidential elections.” https://www.rp.pl/Komentarze/304069890-Szuldrzynski-Czy-mozna-az-tak-lekcewazyc-prawo.html -- KACZYŃSKI APPEARED TO ME AS A SEMI-COMIC, SEMI-TRAGIC FIGURE - ZUZANNA DĄBROWSKA IN RZ: “I don't know why Jarosław Kaczyński came to the Sejm rostrum on Monday, before the vote on postal elections, and I don't think anyone can explain it sensibly. He said something about the Constitutional Tribunal, reminded Civic Platform that 'they started it,' argued that he was right... And he seemed to me like a figure belonging to the canon of Russian literature – semi-comic and semi-tragic. Is this truly what he wanted to tell people sitting at home, glancing at the television? Now, when so much has changed? After all, the jocular nickname 'President of Poland,' used even by PiS MPs, should imply something. One should not gather so much power in one hand – without any responsibility. And Jarosław Kaczyński behaves as if everything that is happening in the public sphere does not interest him at all. Only elections, only the party, and the life he's lived until now.” https://www.rp.pl/Analizy/304069897-Dabrowska-Polityka-jak-zwykle--juz-nie-istnieje.html -- REPORT BY PAWEŁ RESZKA - HOSPITALS ON THE BRINK OF PARALYSIS - in the latest Polityka: “An employee of the Emergency Department at Bródno Hospital (one of the largest in Warsaw) tells 'Polityka' how such a process unfolds: – Procedures were treated quite loosely. The alarm started when a doctor from gastroenterology tested positive. Shortly thereafter, an ambulance brought us a positive patient. It also turned out that one of the ward assistants, who had been working with a fever, was ill. It was already a bit late for procedures, as everyone was infecting each other. I look at today's results: a neurosurgeon, an ICU doctor, two patients. Yesterday, my colleague from the ED. Soon, we'll all be infected. At Bródno, after gastroenterology, the epidemic hit subsequent departments: internal medicine, surgery, ED. The virus was detected in several dozen people – 15% of the staff tested positive, 400 out of 1300 employees were on sick leave. This is just one of many hospitals on the verge of paralysis.” https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/spoleczenstwo/1951732,1,brak-sprzetu-wyplat-i-domino-zakazen-szpitale-na-skraju-paralizu.read -- PARTICIPATING IN FALSE ELECTIONS THREATENS DEATH - MAREK BEYLIN IN GW: “The opposition is rightly demanding the introduction of a state of natural disaster, which would remove the threat of 'dead elections.' However, it should already launch a joint boycott campaign of the May deadlines. In order to save the health and lives of thousands of voters. The slogan 'participation in elections threatens death' is true.” https://wyborcza.pl/7,75968,25851095,udzial-w-lze-wyborach-grozi-smiercia.html -- ANDRZEJ LEDER DECONSTRUCTS THE ISSUE OF EUROPEAN EGOISM - as he writes in Krytyka Polityczna: “The Chinese and Russians have slipped into the gap left by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron. Their planes with doctors and some equipment (in the case of the Russians, reportedly faulty, by the way), which landed in Rome – unlike the potential and unprovided serious aid from European neighbors – will not change the course of the epidemic, but will influence the perception of who is a friend and who is an egoistic hypocrite. The governments of the European Union countries – who on a daily basis preach European rhetoric – may emerge from this crisis as egoistic and hypocritical. How is this possible?!” -- A NEW EPIDEMIC VERDUN - LEDER CONTINUES: “I think politicians understand what needs to be done, but they also know that even a small hesitation will cause their terrified electorates, trapped in shrinking imaginations, to make this the last political decision they make. In this situation, the nation-state appears like a ghost of the past, which, willingly or unwillingly, pushes peoples towards a new Verdun. An epidemic one.” -- THE NEED FOR DECISIONS THAT PRECEDE THE FORMATION OF PEOPLE'S IMAGINATIONS - LEDER CONTINUES: “We are all prisoners of our imaginaries, shaped by centuries of local stories. These do not abound in what is common; the memory of foreignness and harm prevails. Today, leaders fear this. I understand that. It always seemed to me that political decisions could not deviate from what is contained within people's imaginations. But today I think differently. I think there is a need for decisions that will precede the formation of people's imaginations. And there is a need for politicians capable of formulating and making them. There is a need for collective insight that will allow us to see what we cannot yet imagine. Like the insight of Oedipus – the hero of a common, European imagination – who, faced with the plague in Thebes, was able to decipher the Sphinx's riddle. To see the unity of man in its various manifestations; when he is an infant, an adult, an old man. He saw the unity that called for solidarity. Oedipus also had the courage to pay for this insight.” https://krytykapolityczna.pl/swiat/ue/leder-rzeczypospolita-europejska-teraz-albo-nigdy/ -- ON THE SITUATION OF KGHM, ITS PRESIDENT MARCIN CHLUDZIŃSKI - in Dziennik Gazeta Prawna: “In 2008, the cause of the collapse was a real financial crisis. Today, we have a crisis caused by the disruption of supply chains due to people not being able to buy what they usually buy because they are not leaving their homes, the production and movement of goods is different, aimed at meeting demand for specific products. It is currently difficult to say what will emerge from this reality. Looking at the price of copper, we have a good situation for now – there is demand. We are trading, even if the price is lower.” -- CHLUDZIŃSKI ON THE PARADIGM SHIFT: “Business has realized that the logic of buying as cheaply as possible and not having inventory is a trap. The paradigm is changing.” https://biznes.gazetaprawna.pl/artykuly/1466401,chludzinski-npbp-kghm-gospodarka-koronawirus-kryzys.html -- BIRTHDAYS: Grzegorz Furgo.