WARSAW, Poland (AP) – In Poland’s most-watched political satire, the president is mocked as a marginal and pitiful figure. He waits endlessly outside the office of the country’s powerful ruling party chairman, who can never be bothered to see him, the chairman’s secretary not even aware of the president’s position or real name.
The writers of the hit series “The Chairman’s Ear” will now have to change their script.
This week President Andrzej Duda took the country by surprise by vetoing two of three contentious laws seen as an attack on an independent judiciary after days of mass nationwide protests.
It was Duda’s first substantial independent act in nearly two years of approving every key law the ruling Law and Justice party has passed, even moves seen as violations of the constitution in the young democracy.
Hand-picked as the party’s candidate in 2015 elections by party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Duda has been commonly described by critics as a “puppet” or a “notary” who merely rubber-stamps the party’s populist program. A feature of anti-government street protests in recent months has been an effigy of Kaczynski controlling two puppets, Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo.