EVER since a plane carrying then-president Lech Kaczynski crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk on April 10th, 2010, killing all 96 people on board, Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS) has been consumed by conspiracy theories. Now in power, it is led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president’s twin brother, who believes that Russia brought the plane down—perhaps with the connivance of PiS’s Polish political enemies. So the government is having the bodies exhumed. An international team of experts will examine them for evidence of foul play. Many of the victims’ families do not want their relatives dug up, but they have been told the choice is not theirs to make.
The move does not seem to be prompted by political need. PiS is very popular, largely because of its generous welfare policies, including a lavish monthly child benefit it introduced. According to the most recent poll, just 27% of Poles believe the conspiracy theories about the crash. But the Smolensk issue is important to PiS’s core electorate, mostly older people outside the big cities.
Earlier this year Poland’s defence minister, Antoni Macierewicz, who claims that...Continue reading
from Europe http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21709992-far-right-government-thinks-president-lech-kaczynskis-death-was-no-accident-poland-plans?fsrc=rss
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment