Ah, the ultimate PO vs PiS discussion ;) I would disagree. They keep coming up with ideas and not implement them later because despite having enough resources to pass any law they please. It just shows that their ideas cannot actually be translated into legislation. PO, the previous party didn't have a clear vision either, but I don't recall as much "breakthrough" changes being announced back then.
As for being corrupt, keep in mind they're completely bought by the church. This by itself is a huge red flag of corruption for me.
"Bought by the church"? In what sense? Financial, I assume? What indicates that?
The populism exhibited by PO was of a different sort, of course. We can probably agree about it.
Despite being "civic" and all, they actually set out on explicitly discouraging any political involvement - with the slogan that went "let's not make politics" and the infamous "how water in taps" rhetorics.
They refused to acknowledge every major problem the country faced, dismissing any voices of discontent as mere frustration (or worse). Painting a rosy picture of "the best times in a 1000 years", dismissing international security concerns as baseless fears (eg. in president Komorowski's speech not long before the invasion on Ukraine) etc.
At the same time they were - and still are - a chameleon party, perfectly able to flip-flop on every issue overnight, solely for PR reasons... All this is 100% populism. A teflon variety, of course.
> "Bought by the church"? In what sense? Financial, I assume? What indicates that?
They seem to use church as a way to get as many votes as possible while balancing between many political options. There's a lot of cases where they publicly suck up to Rydzyk, but when there was a political discussion about, say, abortion - they "negotiate" with the church trying to avoid annoying the general public. It's a weak party, trying to buy everyone's votes but not really showing any real intent of improving things in the long term.
As for your perspective on PO, I agree. Just keep in mind that it's PiS that passed the recent police surveillance law, so they don't look so good in terms of comparison to "dismissing any voices of discontent as mere frustration (or worse)". Also, the constitution crisis tells a lot about their attitude as well.
> They seem to use church as a way to get as many votes as possible while balancing between many political options
Well, it's a conservative party in a mostly catholic country. What else would they be doing? You just described the most reasonable political strategy such a party could employ. I really fail to see how this constitutes "corruption" by any definition of the term.
It's also funny how they're being interchangeably accused of being inflexible, diehard fanatics consumed by ideologies - and at the same time, "balancing between options" every time they aren't totally rigid but pragmatic about something. Fanatics! And sell-outs! Rinse and repeat :)
> Just keep in mind that it's PiS that passed the recent police surveillance law, so they don't look so good in terms of comparison to "dismissing any voices of discontent as mere frustration (or worse)"
But, while deserving criticism, this was actually the legislation started by the previous government. Which granted extra powers to several agencies (NIK, revenue), used anti-terrorist squads for arresting bloggers in their homes (the "Antykomor" case), tried to censor the internet access etc.
Yet the mainstream media didn't make a big deal out of it back then; neither did the EU nor its affiliates. Why? Because they had the backing of main EU countries. And why did they have it? Because unlike Law and Justice, they were fully submissive to international corporations who finance political campaigns in Germany, in France etc. That's the whole secret. That's all there is to it really. The rest is smokescreen.
As for being corrupt, keep in mind they're completely bought by the church. This by itself is a huge red flag of corruption for me.