Still water runs deep. Have you ever heard of this phrase? It means that the surface may look calm, but there is some powerful force moving underneath. What if this was happening in real life? That force has a name: stealth authoritarianism. That force wears a mask that says ‘democracy’, yet dismantles it from within. Stealth authoritarianism is not a midnight coup – rather, it is the use of legal mechanisms to enact anti-democratic measures. Poland is where we can see stealth authoritarianism most clearly. The PiS Era – from 2015 to 2023 – is where it began.

In 2015, PiS (Law and Justice), a conservative and populist party that protects ‘traditional values’, came into power. Andrzej Duda was elected as president of Poland, and PiS became the ruling party. PiS gained public support as citizens were tired of the Civic Platform party that had governed for nearly eight years in Poland. As a result, PiS won by getting 37.6% overall. PiS used democracy’s fundamental element – a fair election – to gain power. However, they started to use legal procedures to look like ‘democracy’, but in reality it was anti-democratic actions. The start was the fundamental change of the legal system.

In December of 2015, PiS began dismantling the Constitutional Tribunal – also meaning constitutional court. They passed the law that allows an increase in the number of judges. This gave the PiS party the veto power as new elected judges were loyal to PiS. To understand why this is a problem, we need to look at how the constitutional tribunal works in Poland. Before the change, out of 15 judges, only 5 or 9 judges had to show up in the court to make a ruling. But PiS has raised that number to 13 judges. Without 13 judges present , the court was legally paralyzed. This left Poland in a state of  extremely dangerous legal and political instability. 

Next, courts usually decide when judges agree by a simple majority – like 8 out of 15. PiS has changed this to ⅔ of all 15 judges, meaning 10 out of 15 judges have to agree. This may seem like really no big deal, but if PiS gets 5 to 6 party loyal judges, then the government can ensure that the court can never reach the goal to pass the law that PiS doesn’t like. This means that it is a trap to only pass what PiS wants the judges to pass – like a marionette. The president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, has promised five party loyal judges :  Henryk Cioch, Lech Morawski, Mariusz Muszyński, Piotr Pszczółkowski, Julia Przyłębska to give them seats in Constitutional Tribunal. This is called “Midnight Swearing”. The Constitutional tribunal opposed as new judges were already elected. But PiS ignored the opinion of invalid and bulldozed through. This allowed PiS to take control over one of the essential parts of the state – law could only pass by the likes of PiS.

After the changes in the Constitutional Tribunal, PiS passed the new law: “Small Media Act”. A small media act was aimed at the government to take control over public broadcasters such as radio and TV shows. This gave PiS the power to reshape and control state media(e.g., Telewizja Polska, Polskie Radio). Because PiS had already installed party-loyal judges in the Constitutional Tribunal, the act faced no constitutional challenge. This act turned state media into government propaganda instead of showing what citizens wanted. In 2019, Poland produced the anti-LGBT Documentary called “Inwazja(Invasion)”, screen banners. This was to target opposition parties by claiming as the threat to Poland. It caused citizens to have confirmation bias. With the state taking over the media, PiS was able to manipulate elections by controlling the information to the citizens. Also, the fourth estate – the press acting as a crucial overseer over government and society – got dismantled too. PiS did not end there.

PiS carried on replacing high officials with party loyal members. In 2017, Prime Minister Beata Szydło was replaced by Mateusz Morawiecki. He served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023, and empowered the ruling party. Not only that, the military, media, enterprises, and other fields were replaced by people aligned with PiS. This gave PiS overall branches in government, controlling Poland by the will of PiS. This eliminates the competition without removing elections. Instead of representing the citizens, PiS governed Poland purely on its own – the opposition parties had no power to hold them accountable.  Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that PiS also implemented successful policies to the citizens of Poland.

During the PiS era, PiS competed to get votes by accomplishing the key promises – lowering retirement age, increase in minimum wage, etc – they have made, which demonstrated a relatively high rate of fulfillment and votes. The most famous promise was the ‘Family 500+’ program. It was introduced in 2016, and they accomplished the promise of social spending to support the citizens. This program is fundamentally a child support program. In 2016, every child after the first under 18 got PLN 500 (approx. $139.21) monthly regardless of household income. However, if the family income is below PLN 800, they could get the support for the first children also. They did not leave out children with disabilities – if the family had children with documented disability, families got PLN 1,200.  It was aimed to boost the fertility rate. Before this program, the rate was only 1.29, and it boosted up to 1.5 fertility rate. This still exists in Poland and carries on – with a higher supporting budget of PLN 800. The ‘Family 500+’ program worked very well. This program made citizens support PiS by 2% – allowing PiS to be elected again as a ruling party in 2019. This allowed them to be elected again and continue the act of stealth authoritarianism.

However, the seemingly never-ending PiS era will come to an end in 2023. Due to high mobilization of opposition parties, especially women and younger generations, PiS lost by a high voter turnout of 74.4%. PiS is the largest single party in Poland, but failed to secure the seats in parliament and was unable to take control. The PiS – once the ruling party that weaponized legal mechanisms to take control over Poland – has fallen.

Poland is the most significant example of stealth authoritarianism in Europe. Poland’s still water does not stay still. Rather, it moves in depth. The powerful force, which happens to be stealth authoritarianism, is moving beneath the water. It is spreading around the world quite quickly. Stealth authoritarianism has already reached Hungary, Turkey, El Salvador, and more. Unlike old authoritarianism which relied on violence, stealth authoritarianism is slowly breaking democracy apart. By the time the citizens realize what’s wrong, it is way too late. It is one of the most dangerous methods to erode the democracy of one’s country. What could that mean for us? What will happen if we don’t act on this? No one knows for sure, but by the time we recognize it, democracy may already be gone.