Polish lawmakers occupy parliament in holiday protest

Polish lawmaker Michal Stasinski arrived at parliament pulling a suitcase and carrying a bag filled with his mother's homemade cabbage-and-mushroom stuffed dumplings.

While most lawmakers were home for Christmas, Stasinski on Friday was joining a group of opposition lawmakers hunkering down in the dimly lit and chilly building to protest what they consider backsliding on democracy by a populist government whose anti-establishment and nationalistic views echo those of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

"What they are doing is building a kind of velvet dictatorship, step by step," Stasinski, a member of Modern, a pro-business party involved in the protest, told The Associated Press. "I cannot agree to what they are doing and this is why I have decided to spend Christmas here."

The way the ruling party is cementing power has unleashed off-and-on street protests in Warsaw and other cities. However, the party's support remains strong in small towns, boosted by cash bonuses paid monthly to families with at least two children and poorer families that have only one child. The party also lowered the retirement age to 60 for women and 65 for men, a popular change but one economists say the aging society can't afford.

Stasinski's family in Bydgoszcz were sorry he wouldn't be home for Christmas, but even his ailing 86-year-old father supports his decision to protest.

Poland has been in a state of tension since Law and Justice swept to power, winning first the presidency and then a majority in parliament — the most power any party has had in the democratic era.

Party leaders argue they have a mandate to rebuild Poland in line with their traditional, Catholic and patriotic worldview. They say they have had to exert greater control over some institutions to remove the continued influence of political opponents who would stifle their agenda — including former communists and members of Civic Platform, the party led by the former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, now the president of the European Council.

The European Union, while accusing the government of eroding the rule of law, has proven powerless to reverse the course of a nation long seen as one of the most successful democracies to emerge from the ashes of Eastern European communism.

Many of the ruling party leaders accuse the protesting opposition of trying to destabilize the state, saying that they represent an establishment that will not accept its loss of privileges.

Opposition lawmakers, seeing an attack on democratic freedom, occupied the area around the speaker's podium in parliament, blocking work on legislation. Ruling party lawmakers then moved the session to another room and voted on the 2017 budget.

AP

votes that violate procedures, "perhaps even changing the constitution."

"If this illegal vote is repeated, then they'll be able to pass whatever they want. It's dangerous. This is a real political crisis, and to some extent a constitutional crisis," Petru told the AP. "We are going to stay here and show that this is unacceptable."