In 2008, editor Jacek Maziarski, who was already in poor health, wrote a text about the manipulated parliamentary elections of a year earlier. The thesis of the journalist, who died in 2009, was about the influence of non-governmental organizations on the campaign after which Donald Tusk first came to power. Post-electoral research showed that the spot “Zmień kraj – go na dziż na śniadanie”, produced as part of the “social campaign” of various non-governmental organizations, played an important role in the defeat of PiS. The author of the pro-turnout campaign, which was in fact an anti-PiS campaign (“changing the country” when PiS was in power meant voting for the opposition), was the Civic Development Foundation, founded a few months earlier by Leszek Balcerowicz. . According to a report on the progress of the campaign, prepared by FOR itself, the entire initiative “contributed to the influx of 36% of previously unvoted voters (…) [oraz] to prevent the outflow of 17% of early voters. In the 2007 elections, Civic Platform won more than 17% of voters, resulting in an additional 76 seats in the Sejm.
Maziarski wrote this about the newly established Foundation:
L. Balcerowicz is also chairman of the five-member Council, which includes: former minister and banker Tadeusz Syryjczyk and Jan Wejchert, co-owner of TVN, the richest man of all Polish media people. In the FOR Program Committee we find the names of: Bartoszewski, Andrzej Olechowski, Marek Safjan, Andrzej Zoll, Jacek Fedorowicz and many other figures with well-known political orientation.
However, the Balcerowicz foundation was not the only one concerned about the ‘turnout’ in the elections. Next Maziarski:
The report states that in order to overthrow Kaczyński’s government, the “21 Octobera.pl coalition” was created. The organizers of the coalition were: Civic Development Forum – FOR, Fundacja im. Stefan Batory, Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan, Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of PR Companies, Institute of Public Affairs, Grand Orchestra of Christmas Charities, Foundation for Freedom, Center for Civic Education, Association of School of Leaders, Forum of Non-State Initiatives, Projekt Polska Foundation and the Student Parliament of the Republic of Poland. The coalition also included about 150 other non-governmental organizations from across Poland. As part of the campaign – the report further discusses – television, radio and press advertisements were prepared and broadcast for free by the largest television stations (Telewizja Polska, TVN, TVN 24, Polsat) and televisions aimed at young people (MTV, Viva), radio stations (Polskie Radio, Radio Zet, Radiostacja, RMF, TOK FM), daily newspapers (including Dziennik, Fakt, Gazeta Wyborcza, Przegląd Sportowy), weeklies (Newsweek, Gala, Angora), regional daily newspapers (Dziennik Wschodni, Echo Dnia, Gazeta Współczesna , Gazeta Lubuska, Gazeta Pomorska, Głos Szczeciński, Głos Koszaliński, Kurier Poranny, Nowa Trybuna Opolska, Nowiny) and Internet portals (Wirtualna Polska, Gazeta.pl, Onet.pl, O2, ngo.pl). The campaign was also supported by local media.
In short: under the guise of fighting for democracy, a masterful socio-technical operation was carried out to promote the opposition, without financing from the budgets of political parties.
Maziarski called it a “media coup” and cited the text on the subject: “how the 2007 elections were manipulated.”
And now, after sixteen years, this association of fighters for freedom and democracy has returned with a similar action. A spot was published on Wednesday about the October 15 referendum, in which the content of the questions was judged to incite “prejudice” against refugees.
The place is funny, but what’s even funnier is that The same people who worried about low voter turnout a decade and a half ago are now worried about high referendum turnout. In reality, of course, it is about who the turnout is intended for: the right wing or the rest of the political parties. And just as they were then united in the ‘October 21 coalition’, this time they operate under the internet address ‘don’t let the referendum put you under pressure’. The organizers of the campaign are: Civic Development Forum, Institute of Public Affairs, National Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations, Open Republic and Amnesty International. Many of the names from these circles have already acted as advocates of the ‘Change the country, go to elections’ campaign in 2007 or are associated with opposition candidates for the next parliament. For example, the board of the National Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations includes people associated with Janina Ochojska and Adam Bodnar, humanitarian activists, including those involved in helping illegal immigrants smuggled into Poland as part of the White Russian KGB operation codenamed “Lock”. , such as Draginja Nadażdin. For many years, the Institute of Civil Affairs was headed by Lena Kolarska-Bobińska, former Minister of Science and Higher Education in the Tusk government. The association “Open Rzeczpospolita” has as statutory bodies Professor Ireneusz Krzemiński and Professor Michał Bilewicz, whose involvement in anti-PiS activism is publicly known.
In other words, supporters of the Civic Platform, under the guise of NGOs, organized an anti-turnout campaign before the October 15 referendum.
It is therefore clear that not only Jerzy Owsiak’s billboards, which pretend to fight Sepsis while mobilizing the anti-PiS electorate, are playing outside the Civic Platform campaign, but also organizations that should in theory rescue prisoners from prisons of authoritarian regimes (this is why Amnesty was created (International) or simply the pillars of old liberal Zbovidians like Balcerowicz or Lena Kolarska-Bobińska. And not only them. Jacek Maziarski also described a decade and a half ago the silent involvement of the Adenauer Foundation in the PiS defeat in 2007. The same foundation that co-financed the Trzaskowski Campus. The same forces, the same people and the same interests want to put themselves back in power using the same methods.
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Source: wPolityce