“I try to support PiS by, for example, stating what should be done with grain from Ukraine, and I also support successive ministers of agriculture, at least for a while, but I also see a lot of mistakes that PiS makes. I can’t sit and shut up. I have been associated with PiS for almost 22 years, it would be very difficult for me to change my political colors, but I am also starting to see more and more how many mistakes PiS is making towards the Polish countryside,” said Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski, PiS MP , head of the PiS, in an interview with the wPolityce.pl portal Council for Agriculture and Rural Areas to the President of the Republic of Poland, former Minister of Agriculture.
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wPolityce.pl: Journalist Krzysztof Lech Łuksza posted a sensational message on Twitter that Przemysław Wipler would negotiate with you, among other things, about starting from the list of the Confederation. Were there conversations on this topic?
Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski: No, that didn’t happen. I am quite stable in my political views and I have expressed this many times when there were attempts to drag me through different parties or create new ones, even after the “Vijf voor Dieren”. I want to help PiS. It is true that sometimes my offer is not well received. I retain the right to make my own political decisions, but no one from the Confederacy has spoken to me and does not even expect such talks.
However, if you were offered an offer by the Confederacy to run for office, would you necessarily refuse?
That’s a question I don’t have an answer to. I try to support PiS by, for example, stating what should be done with grain from Ukraine, and I also support successive ministers of agriculture, at least for a while, but I also see a lot of mistakes that PiS makes. I can’t sit and shut up. I have been connected to PiS for almost 22 years, it would be very difficult for me to change my political colors, but I am also starting to see more and more how many mistakes PiS is making towards the Polish countryside. The atmosphere in the countryside is bad and hostile to PiS. I don’t see any steps to improve it. The problem of grain from Ukraine is not only a question of how to unload the warehouses before harvest, but a more important problem is another loss of confidence in the village. On the inflow of grain from Ukraine, certain companies earned several billion zlotys and lost Polish farmers. This undermines trust in PiS. I hear voices that any criticism of PiS joins the chorus of opponents from the right, people who want to harm Poland. I want to fix PiS, not damage it. However, if I see that my proposals are not taken into account, I also reserve the right to make my own decisions.
For much of your speech, you sound like you’re already outside of PiS – I imagine many people will take your words that way.
If someone thinks that only flatterers are needed in PiS, they don’t understand what politics is all about. If someone takes my sentences in which I show what should be done and not just criticize… I have no prophetic ability, but everything I said literally came true. This was the case with the “Five for Animals”, and with several slip-ups by successive ministers of agriculture. Politics is not only luring with promises, but also concrete action in difficult circumstances. I don’t see a big reflection in PiS. There is talk of returning to some fragments of “Fridays for the Animals”, the problem of grain is still unresolved.
However, some steps have already been taken to resolve this issue. There was an agricultural “round table”. In turn, the prime ministers of several countries, including Mateusz Morawiecki, sent a letter to Ursula von der Leyen demanding intervention regarding the inflow of Ukrainian grain into the EU.
During the roundtable, Minister Kowalczyk committed to several actions, some of which are beyond his remit. I’m rooting for him, but they’ll also see how he’ll be able to implement these provisions. Of course, certain compromises have to be made within the party, but if the votes of many deputies are not taken into account telling the party leadership what not to do or what actions to take, then it is not surprising that the embittered PiS delegates can come up with other political constructions. Treating MPs like soldiers raising their hands for some solutions proposed by the political centre, where everyone is supposed to support it, and before there was no internal debate that would minimize the risks of decisions taken does not feel right for MPs. I know dozens of PiS delegates who are led to believe that their opinion doesn’t count. In the Sejm, it turns out that we vote on several bills, which then have to be withdrawn, corrected, many amendments passed by the Senate, self-amendments. This is not a good way to conduct politics. However, I have made it clear that I would like to run for PiS in the election. If PiS does not feel like it, life does not tolerate emptiness, it may turn out that I, for example, am running as an independent candidate for the Senate.
To be honest, after publicly criticizing PiS’s actions, it can be difficult to receive an election bid from this party.
PiS has been a pluralistic party for years. Our program in 2015 was very good and socially accepted. It was a really good, open party back then. Now something bad is happening, because anyone who has a different opinion and still wants to serve Poland is marginalized. I want to stick with PiS, but PiS also needs to understand how many mistakes it makes. Elections aren’t just won by spells saying how much good we’ve done and that people should love us for it. We have done a lot of good, people notice, but current political decisions often do not take into account what we have already done. First of all, you have to listen to the people in the area, because they actually know the social mood.
This is probably the purpose of this current tour of MPs, MEPs and PiS ministers through Poland. There are many such meetings with voters every weekend.
Possible. It seems to me that at such meetings, partly because of their format, there is no time for longer discussions among the participants. On the other hand, if people come to a particular MP in the office, meet him somewhere in the market, meet in the commune, then there is more time to listen to people’s comments.
Adam Stankiewicz spoke
Source: wPolityce