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The nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), which won an outright majority in 2015, has seen its grip on parliamentary power weaken in the years since. It is also roiled in conflict with the European Commission over the rule of law and faces wide opposition, especially in urban areas, to its position on cultural issues.
Set against this backdrop, the drama that played out on the country’s eastern border with Belarus — while unsolicited by Poland and serious for all involved — can be seen as a helpful distraction for the ruling PiS.
“This migration crisis is quite useful from the perspective of the domestic political agenda for the party because they at the moment in trouble. And they have been in trouble for quite a time already, with the parliamentary majority becoming slimmer and slimmer,” Piotr Buras, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Warsaw office, told CNN.
Meanwhile, rising inflation is causing financial pain for many in Poland, and polling indicates support for the government has dropped in recent weeks, said Buras.
“I don’t want to play down the situation because it is risky and serious, quite a difficult political situation because it involves a security conflict and a humanitarian crisis… but there is of course also an attempt to capitalize politically on this crisis,” he said.
Judy Dempsey, editor of the Strategic Europe blog for the thinktank Carnegie Europe, agreed that the crisis had been “playing out very well” for the ruling party.
Support for the government had fallen, she said, amid protests over the death of the pregnant woman. But Dempsey added: “With…
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Source : cnn
