Former education superintendent and councilor of the Małopolska regional assembly, Barbara Nowak, has become the head of PiS structures in Kraków.
Former education superintendent and councilor of the Małopolska regional assembly, Barbara Nowak, has become the head of PiS structures in Kraków, replacing Michał Drewnicki. The decision of the PiS provincial board has caused quite a stir, and there is talk of another split in the party.
Former education superintendent and councilor of the Małopolska regional assembly Barbara Nowak became the leader of the Małopolska branch of Law and Justice. This promotion is a surprise even to many representatives of the group, including her predecessor, Michał Drewnicki.
The decision was officially announced after a large protest by Catholics in front of the French Consulate in Kraków, which was promoted by Barbara Nowak.
Michał Drewnicki is a Krakow city councilor, PiS press spokesman in the City Council. He also worked, among others, in the Marshal’s Office during the time of Witold Kozłowski, and worked closely with the team of former Prime Minister Beata Szydło, who has been in a sharp conflict with Ryszard Terlecki’s group for some time now. A striking example of this was the election of the Marshal of the Małopolska Province. There was a division in PiS, Terlecki was supposed to inspire Chairman Kaczyński to choose Łukasz Kmita, which did not please Beata Szydło’s people. It was only possible to elect the Marshal after the sixth attempt, and Łukasz Smółka became the Marshal, but many treat this situation as a sign that things are not going too well in PiS, despite the fact that the crisis was finally averted.
As if that wasn’t enough, after the triumphs of PiS politicians, when the marshal was elected, the councillor of the Regional Assembly Barbara Nowak announced that she was giving up her mandate as a councillor and resigning from being in big politics. This was supposed to be her expression of disagreement for rewarding “traitors” – that is, uncritically accepting politicians into the ranks of the party who blocked the election of Kmita as marshal. Nowak, however, quickly changed her mind, remembering that she had found herself in the Regional Assembly not by her own decision but by the will of the voters. As you can see, it paid off, because she was elected head of the PiS structures in Krakow.
The strange situation in the party is evidenced by the comment of former Prime Minister Beata Szydło on this matter:
Barbara Nowak is a history teacher. In the years 1992-2010 she was the principal of Primary School No. 85 in Kraków, in the years 2010-2016 a councillor (PiS) of the city of Kraków, and since 16 March 2016 – the education superintendent of Małopolska. In this position she has often stirred controversy. Among other things, she called the Jagiellonian University an “escort agency”, described the death by shooting of teenage nurse Danuta Siedzikówna as “an educational success”, demanded only Polish guides to Auschwitz and criticized the new version of “Dziady” as harmful to children and anti-Polish. She also protested together with representatives of the National Movement against the LGBT community and described vaccinations against the coronavirus as an “experiment”. Students and teachers have repeatedly demanded her resignation, but she had strong support from the Law and Justice community and the Minister of Education Przemysław Czarnek.
(Marcin Guzik)
