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Undoing the Institutions of the Democratic State

This chapter covers how, from the very beginning, the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS)) party targeted five democratic institutions as obstacles to its capture of the state. First, it looks at the parliamentary opposition being marginalized and effectively silenced. Second, it details how the civil service has been subjected to political control, and the principles of professionalism and neutrality in the civil service have been abandoned. Third, the chapter looks at the public media being transformed into a propaganda machine for the ruling party, and the commercial media being threatened with laws that would constrain their operation. Fourth, it considers how electoral commissions have been effectively subjected to the executive, which renders massive electoral frauds possible. Finally, the chapter looks at how institutions dispensing grants and subsidies to civil society organizations have been centralized and subjected to the executive. All these institutions provide a buffer for the population from the arbitrary will of politicians, which is why PiS could not tolerate them.