Poland’s Opposition, sections of the media, and rights campaigners yesterday accused senior officials of using law enforcement agencies to try to stop a magazine publishing secret tapes that are embarrassing for the government.
With even some of his own supporters criticising how he has handled the tapes affair, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said one option was to call a snap election – though it was not clear if he could get the required approval for this from Parliament.
Late on Wednesday prosecutors and officers from Poland's internal security agency raided the offices of the Wprost weekly magazine that has already published some of the recordings and is planning to release more next Monday.
The audio tapes – and the government’s response to them – have tarnished the image of Poland, the European Union’s biggest eastern economy, as a model post-communist democracy.
It may happen that the only solution will be earlier elections if the crisis in confidence is so deep
In the tapes already released, central bank governor Marek Belka and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz were recorded discussing the removal of another minister and ways to put pressure on a private businessman.
Belka and Sienkiewicz have said their words were taken out of context and they deny doing anything illegal. A member of Parliament with Tusk's Civic Platform party told Reuters: “I think the Prime Minister made a serious mistake by not dismissing minister Sienkiewicz.” He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal party business.
Tusk told a news conference he was committed to respecting freedom of speech but there was also a need to track down any as-yet unpublished tapes to stop them being used to blackmail officials.
“It may happen that the only solution will be earlier elections if the crisis in confidence is so deep,” Tusk added.
Poland’s zloty currency was little changed but volatile yesterday and credit default swaps – the price of insuring Polish debt against default – were stable.
Parliament can trigger an early election if two-thirds of lawmakers vote in favour, but no bloc in Parliament controls that number of votes. An official with the main opposition group, Law and Justice (PiS) told Reuters the party’s focus was on the election taking place late next year as scheduled.