Poles switchedPoland changes its prime minister, but not its real leader

ON DECEMBER 6TH, Beata Szydlo, then Poland’s prime minister, was the special guest on Radio Maryja, an ultraconservative radio station that is close to the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party. Her appearance was overshadowed by something everyone had known for weeks: Mrs Szydlo was on her way out. By the following evening, she was thanking Poles for her two years in office. The party offered no explanation for Mrs Szydlo’s departure; indeed, the same morning, it had blocked an opposition motion to unseat her. Mrs Szydlo’s fate, like her appointment in 2015, was determined by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS’s reclusive party leader. (“I believe in his wisdom,” she told Radio Maryja’s television counterpart, TV Trwam, earlier this week.) In a telling sign of how Poland is now run, Mrs Szydlo first submitted her resignation on December 7th to PiS’s political committee, rather than to the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, who is formally responsible for nominating prime ministers. Only the following day did she ask for Mr Duda’s approval. Despite earlier speculation, the 68-year-old Mr Kaczynski will not step in himself—as he did in 2006, during PiS’s first stint in power. Mrs Szydlo will be replaced by her deputy, the 49-year-old Mateusz Morawiecki, a former banker who heads the ministries of finance and economic development. In an earlier political era, Mr Morawiecki served in 2010 as an economic adviser to Donald Tusk, who was then prime minister (and is now president of the European Council). PiS and its nationalist followers despise the liberal Mr Tusk. But over the past two years Mr Morawiecki, who did not join PiS until March 2016, has won Mr Kaczynski’s trust. Asked in December 2016 by Rzeczpospolita, a daily, to comment on Mr Morawiecki’s performance in government, the PiS leader said: “I will be able to assess it in perhaps a year”. Halfway through its term, PiS remains popular, buoyed by its generous welfare policies. A poll this week puts its support at 41%, far ahead of the centrist opposition. The party’s problems have been more internal than external. In July, Mr Duda, a former PiS member, unexpectedly vetoed two controversial laws on the judiciary. After months of deadlock, the lower chamber of parliament approved modified versions on December 8th. The new law would require about 40% of the more than 80 judges on Poland’s Supreme Court to stand down. PiS says it is dismantling an “extraordinary caste” of judges. The European Commission, however, has challenged the judiciary reforms for undermining the rule of law and violating EU treaty obligations. It has been awaiting the bill’s wording before deciding how aggressively to pursue infringement proceedings against Poland. The new law is likely to persuade it to go ahead full-steam. Worldlier than his predecessor, Mr Morawiecki may seek to repair some of the damage PiS’s policies have inflicted on Polish relations with the EU and Germany. But for PiS, the main battlefront will remain at home. Poland will hold local elections next year, followed by parliamentary ones in 2019. The incoming prime minister’s optimistic economic proposals and mild manners could win PiS votes. Its judicial overhaul, which has been controversial at home as well as abroad, will go ahead. “The people change, but the programme does not,” said Beata Mazurek, the PiS’s spokesperson, commenting on the swap of prime ministers. Meanwhile, in his office at PiS’s headquarters, the country’s real boss—Mr Kaczynski—will remain unaccountable.