The biggest Christmas blockbuster showing at one of Warsaw’s largest movie theatres isn’t Napoleon, The Hunger Games prequel or Wonka, it’s the proceedings of the Polish parliament.
About 600 people packed into the Kinoteka Multiplex in central Warsaw on Monday to watch a live broadcast from the Sejm, the country’s legislature. Interest had been so high that all the free tickets to the livestream were snapped up within eight minutes of becoming available. Additional packed houses are expected Tuesday and Wednesday when the cinema will again devote two of its eight screens to the Sejm.
“We are very popular today,” said Maria Majchrzak, the theatre’s manager. “Everyone is very happy, and people are laughing, people are clapping. People are just enjoying what they see like the good change that is coming.”
Poles have been transfixed by politics for months, fuelled by a hotly contested election on Oct. 15 that saw a coalition led by former prime minister Donald Tusk defeat the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) in a stunning upset. Turnout for the vote was 74 per cent, the highest since the collapse of communism in the 1990s, and in several big cities such as Warsaw it topped 80 per cent.
The big attraction for many Poles has been watching the formal transfer of power from the populist PiS to Mr. Tusk’s centrist coalition. The political drama is playing out this week in the Sejm in a series of heated debates, votes and political posturing. Mr. Tusk returned as Prime Minister after a parliamentary vote on Monday.
The proceedings have been a hit on the Sejm’s YouTube channel – viewership reached 275,000 Monday – but Ms. Majchrzak said there had been chatter on social media for days about how people wanted to watch the political changeover on the big screen. That got her thinking about screening the proceedings. “It all started as a joke on social media, but then we decided that we wanted to treat this more seriously,” she said.
If Monday is any indication, the Sejm could become a permanent part of the theatre’s “now playing” lineup. Much of the audience followed the political machinations all day, starting at 9 a.m. More than a few munched on popcorn and sipped soft drinks as the action unfolded.
“I came to the cinema because this is a historic moment for this country,” said 24-year-old Damian Jaskolski. “I especially took the whole day off and I’ve been here for five hours.”
Dominik Kazus, 30, said he felt thrilled to be part of the audience. “This is a unique event, probably a rarity in the world, when people young and old together watch live what is happening in politics,” he said. “We are looking at people who have the right and power to influence our lives.”
Much like a good movie, Monday’s debate turned fiery at times, with MPs calling each other liars and accusations flying that Poland’s sovereignty was at risk from Germany and Russia. At one point, PiS Leader Jarosław Kaczyński stormed to the podium and snapped at Mr. Tusk, who once held a senior post at the European Union: “I know that you are a German agent.”
The tension kept building until late afternoon, when the PiS government lost a vote of confidence – 266 MPs to 190 – signalling the formal end of the party’s eight years in power.
Cheers and chants of “goodbye, goodbye” erupted across the Kinoteka when the vote tally was announced.
Tomasz Gibek, 35, was among those celebrating. “I have been waiting eight years for this fairy tale,” he said. “There is no better place to collectively see the fall – let’s call it a change – of government. It is in my opinion a change for the better.”
Sylwia Pietrasewicz, 52, said she also couldn’t wait to see the final day of the PiS regime. “I came here to see a happy ending in the form of the defeat of this formation,” she said.
Mr. Tusk, 66, has already put together a cabinet, and on Monday evening the Sejm elected him as Prime Minister. He will present his government’s agenda to MPs on Tuesday and face a similar confidence vote, which he is certain to win. The coalition’s three parties – Mr. Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform, the New Left and the centre-right Third Way – hold 248 of the Sejm’s 460 seats. PiS has 194, and the far-right Confederation party 18.
Mr. Tusk campaigned on a promise to pull Poland back from PiS’s slide toward authoritarianism and rebuild the country’s fractured relations with the European Union. He has also vowed to liberalize abortion laws and undo PiS’s anti-democratic reforms to the courts, public media and other institutions.
“First of all, I want to thank Poles, it’s a great day,” Mr. Tusk told the chamber shortly after his election as Prime Minister. “For all those who for many years believed that things would get even better, that we would chase away the darkness.”
He also nodded to former Polish president Lech Wałesa, who was among the onlookers in the Sejm. Mr. Tusk spoke about how, as a student, he’d helped the former labour leader organize some of the first demonstrations in the Gdansk shipyards in the 1970s, which later played a role in ending communist rule.
Back at the Kinoteka, Ms. Majchrzak was preparing for another showing at 9 a.m. Tuesday. She’s so happy with the interest that the cinema plans to keep the livestream going on two screens every day for the next month. “We’ll see how the audience responds,” she said. “I guess people still want to come.”