“Rafał Trzaskowski deliberately did not come to the session because he would have heard from PiS councilors and city residents what echoed even in his absence – this is the Rafał Trzaskowski affair, says Dr. Błażej Poboży, political scientist, deputy head of the Ministry of the Interior Affairs and Administration and Warsaw Councillor.
wPolityce.pl: Why didn’t the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, participate in the extraordinary session of the city council on the waste scandal yesterday? Is this his intention?
Blaise Poboza: Naturally. I spoke about this at Friday’s City Council meeting in a rather forceful speech. Rafał Trzaskowski deliberately did not come to the session because he would have heard from PiS councilors and city residents what echoed even in his absence – this is the Rafał Trzaskowski affair. It is President Trzaskowski who oversees the entire bureaucratic corps directly subordinate to him. The secretary of the city is his closest person in the city, he is the second person in the hierarchy after the president in the entire apparatus of the capital’s city hall, and any attempt to pretend that this is not a scandal that Rafał Trzaskowski politically tax is a misunderstanding. I don’t think he wanted to hear all this. In addition to the immediate reason, which is the desire to avoid confrontation with the truth, residents and the substantive opposition club, namely PiS in Warsaw, there is a second reason – Rafał Trzaskowski shows not for the first time that he is simply not interested in business in Warsaw. Perhaps this is why there are several irregularities in the functioning of the city. Rafał Trzaskowski very rarely comes to the sessions of the City Council, but he never comes if it is a personal problem for him or a problem for the Warsaw Platform. When a crisis arises, Rafał Trzaskowski hides. He cowardly hides behind other officials, just as he cowardly hides behind his two vice presidents yesterday.
How is it possible that Vice President Michał Olszewski can conduct an audit in this case, when according to the prosecutor’s office he himself was responsible for waste management when this practice existed?
If we take the information from the prosecutor’s office as a determining factor, then Michał Olszewski was in fact responsible for these matters during the period when, according to the prosecutor’s office, there were alleged irregularities in the collection and management of municipal waste. Of course I share this view – it is a misunderstanding that the person who presented information about irregularities in this process is the person who supervised this process due to the division of powers in the capital’s town hall, although it might be better to say that he did not supervise it, as evidenced by the actions of the services involved. I also want to strongly emphasize that two speeches, mainly by Vice-President Olszewski, as well as several other speeches, eg Mr. Potapowicz, the head of the PO Szostakowski caucus, was one big misunderstanding. We have not heard of any irregularities in the section on irregularities. That’s why it was a mockery that I called last night’s stand-up. When I listened to the statements of several of these PO politicians, especially Olszewski and Potapowicz, it was a mockery of the applicants, ie opposition councillors, and above all a mockery of the citizens of Warsaw. I repeat this consistently, it is painful for the residents of our city. Why is there one of the most expensive municipal waste collection and management systems in Warsaw, or why do Warsaw residents pay so much for garbage collection?
What are the chances that Varsovians, by paying for waste collection, are funding MPO scams?
This is assessed by the relevant authorities and services. These questions and statements were formulated in several speeches by councillors, but I am referring to the opposition councilors in Warsaw, who are the substantive voice in the Council. That’s why some of my colleagues tried to connect these dots during yesterday’s session. Let’s wait for the findings of the prosecutor’s office, and if they lead to a lawsuit, then for the decision of the court. However, I absolutely do not accept that, according to Civic Platform politicians, nothing has happened. It happened and I’ll say it again – Rafał Trzaskowski is to blame for it. As in the case of Hanna Gronkiewicz Waltz, who allowed irregularities to lead to a massive reprivatization scandal, we are now dealing with the second largest scandal in the history of the capital’s local government: the waste scandal. In my opinion, because of the period of Trzaskowski’s presidency, this is a scandal of Trzaskowski’s presidency.
How much influence can this case have on the election campaign and support for Rafał Trzaskowski himself?
With a well-functioning, fully pluralistic media system, such a scandal would be the beginning of the end of Rafał Trzaskowski’s political career. However, I am not naive – even the worst information coming out of the capital city hall and even another scandal in Warsaw only slightly reduces support for PO. This is because the PO has managed, and this is one of its few “successes”, to create the belief that Warsaw’s affairs are part of a wider political dispute with the PiS government. As we heard from PO councilors, nothing happened and unfortunately some PO voters are immune to all the harm that President Trzaskowski’s government is doing to them just because he is an opponent of the political power that rules the country. It’s pretty depressing. In a normal situation, I would expect political consequences to be drawn against President Trzaskowski and for him to take some of the responsibility. However, let’s not be under any illusions, because he is trying to dodge and move the discussion to the level of national politics. Yesterday there were already attempts to discredit the CBA or the prosecutor’s office, and even the court. So we saw an attempt to cloud the subject, pretend nothing had happened and belittle the authorities and institutions involved in the process of exposing this scandal.
He spoke to Mr
Source: wPolityce