Poland:Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski faced a growing outcry yesterday over accusations that his secret services had spied on politicians, an affair some commentators have branded a "Polish Watergate".
Former prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz joined the fray, saying he had grounds to suspect he was spied on when in office and that Poland had become an "Orwellian state".
"I cannot rule out that I was eavesdropped on," he told private TVN television yesterday. "We are living in an Orwellian state and we need to be aware of that."
Mr Kaczynski is pushing for a snap election in October after the acrimonious collapse of his coalition with fringe anti-EU parties, which deprived him of a majority in parliament.
The main opposition parties have agreed to hold an election two years early. But they want a parliamentary inquiry first into the spying allegations and what they call abuse of power by Mr Kaczynski and his twin brother Lech, the president.
The allegations were fuelled by former interior minister Janusz Kaczmarek, sacked in July, and by Mr Kaczynski's ex-coalition partners.
Mr Kaczynski has dismissed their charges as a "pile of rubbish" aimed at discrediting his anti-corruption crusade.
But Mr Marcinkiewicz, in another interview, in the conservative daily Dziennik, said he had evidence that a senior Law and Justice official tried to persuade the internal intelligence agency to put him under surveillance, but that the request had been denied.
A visibly angry Mr Kaczynski said Mr Marcinkiewicz was "telling fairy tales", but the opposition seized on the remarks.
"What we have here is governing . . . through surveillance, methods that in a democratic country are forbidden," said ex-president Aleksander Kwasniewski, who heads the centre-left opposition. Polish media have also attacked the government, saying the accusations must be investigated.
- (Reuters)