Palikot power transforms national politics

“Palikot’s revolution”, headlines Wprost weekly onthe movement which garnered over 10 percent of the vote in the recent Polish election, making it the third largest party in the Sejm. Leading with a frontpage photo of three Palikot’s Movement (RP) leaders — founder Janusz Palikot, transsexual Anna Grodzka and gay activist Robert Biedroń — the Warsaw weekly asks: “Will they change politics, the Church and the Poles?”. Certainly, all three have huge political ambitions. Their first proposal — to remove the wooden cross hanging in Poland's parliament — has already caused a stir and a wave of criticism from the mainstream parties. According to a poll published in Gazeta Wyborcza, most Poles (71%) did not like the idea either.

But Janusz Palikot is not easily discouraged. In an interview with Wprost he hints that his goal is not to create “another political party” but to “carry out changes”. “Polish society will be incredibly transformed, even if we don’t enter any government or implement anything because our proposals will be voted down. It is going to be a normalisation of otherness on a gigantic scale”, enthuses Palikot who calls for public funding of IVF treatment, a clear separation of the Church from the state, legalisation of gay and lesbian unions, liberalisation of abortion laws as well as marijuana legalisation - a message that met with a surprisingly warm reception from an electorate long considered conservative. “Not only has Palikot tapped into a strong anti-clerical sentiment in Polish society, he has also caught a wind of change blowing from the West”, concludes philosopher and columnist Marcin Król.