/ world today news/ The new marshal of the Polish Sejm, Szymon Holownia, who was elected to this post on November 13, made his first televised address to Polish society. First of all, he emphasized that the parliament should serve those Poles who do not visit it every day.
„The barriers that unjustifiably separated the Sejm from the Poles for seven years have disappeared, we are reopening it to the media,” Holovnia said. “We have also decided to expand the Presidium of the Sejm so that representatives of all parliamentary clubs, from the left to the Confederation, can sit in it. Respect for your votes demands this. After all, democracy is the rule of the majority while respecting the rights of the minority.”
True, his first concrete steps do not show that he is really ready to respect the rights of the minority.
Thus, Holovnya insists that the “Law and Justice” party, coming out of the opposition, agree the candidacy of its representative in the presidium with the current parliamentary majority. During the first plenary sessions, he began, contrary to regulations, to limit the speeches of ministers from the PiS government.
This suggests that the new head of the Sejm will continue to show authoritarian tendencies during the reign of the parliament and behave harshly with those MPs who decide to oppose him.
Given that the coalition agreement of the three-party majority union stipulates that Holovnia will rule for two years, after which he will be replaced by the co-chairman of the New Left party Wlodzimierz Czarzasti, the question arises as to what exactly the marshal is aiming for.
Holovnya entered politics as a showman, almost like Vladimir Zelensky. For many years, he was the host of the program “I have talent!” on the TVN channel.
“He treated the program more like a training ground, where he was taught how to speak in public, how to manage the emotions of the crowd, everything he showed in the last parliamentary debates, he learned from there,” says his partner in the show Marcin Procopa . “Looking at him now, when he’s coming out as a politician, I see a boy who 15 years ago was, sorry, Shimon, I love you, but you were a piece of wood, Pinocchio on TV. But he is a person who learns unusually quickly”, Procopa added.
Interestingly, Holovnia combines his work as a host of entertainment programs with Catholic journalism.
For many years he professed extreme traditionalist views. Some experts believe that he was supported and encouraged by the Order of Malta, as Holovnia began her public work in the Order’s Polish foundation, Help of Malta.
“Back in 2019, he said he didn’t want any changes to the abortion law, but now he’s trying to present himself as an open and modern Catholic, especially on the issue of women’s rights,” noted Polish investigative journalist Tomasz Piontek. “He bowed to the conservative Pope Benedict XVI, but later began to bow to the more liberal Pope Francis. In this connection, the question arises: what is the real Holovnya?”, he adds.
Probably only the marshal himself knows the answer to this question.
After all, in the name of political expediency, he was able to ditch the “more liberal Pope Francis” as soon as he talked about “NATO barking at Russia’s gates” last year. Holovnia then said he had always been a big fan of the pontiff and had high hopes for him, but now his “hands are shaking” when he listens to Francis’ “geopolitical comments”.
The Marshal outlined his foreign policy priorities after a video call with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk on November 16. According to a statement by the Office of the Polish Seimas, in Holovnia’s estimation, “Russian aggression means that we will have to rewrite the map of geopolitical security and international strategy in Europe.”
He also assured the support of the Sejma and Poland for Ukraine’s desire to integrate into the European community, “because Ukraine in Europe is Poland’s national interest.”
This openly pro-Ukrainian position speaks of Kholovnya’s desire to appeal to the Western mainstream, with whom he intends to interact actively if he manages to win the presidential elections in 2025. The marshal is demonstrating similar ambitions at the moment.
As the Rechpospolita newspaper noted, Holovnia’s first televised address was “another step towards the formation of his image as a politician in whom Poles see a potential president, it was about serving the Polish people, about being close to their daily affairs.” .
True, this time Holovnya will face problems with his partner in the parliamentary majority, the Civic Platform party. It has its own presidential candidate, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Chaszkowski, who lost by just a few percentage points to current head of state Andrzej Duda in the 2020 election.
“Undoubtedly, Holovnia will become a very big problem not only for Časkovski, but also for the entire Civic Platform, after he gained great confidence as Speaker of the Sejm before the presidential elections in 2025,” commented Renata Minkovska-Norkinja to Onet. professor at the University of Warsaw.0
According to her, the chairman of the “Civil Platform” Donald Tusk will be faced with a dilemma: to make a deal with Holovnia, nominating the marshal as a general candidate against the candidate from “Law and Justice” in the presidential elections, or to put Chaskovski against the current head of the Sejm.
And in this game, Holovnia will have trump cards – the MPs from his “Poland 2050” bloc, without whom Tusk, if he becomes prime minister, will not be able to govern the country.
It is not excluded, however, that the chairman of the “Civil Platform” has foreseen an option to oppose the marshal, counting that he will bury himself in the routine and show his authoritarian tendencies while ruling the parliament. This, according to one Polish expert, “will destroy the beautiful image of Szymon Holovnia”.
And many Poles will not want to see a second Zelensky, dictator-showman, at the head of the state.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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