Polish opposition stages major anti-govt protest

WARSAW: Half a million protesters packed the streets of central Warsaw on Sunday, Poland´s opposition organisers said, claiming one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in the 30 years since the end of communism. Lech Walesa, a former Polish president, Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the fight against communism, joined opposition figures at the head of the march ahead of legislative elections in the autumn. People travelled from across the country after former prime minister Donald Tusk, head of the centrist opposition party Civic Platform (PO), called for the protest against “the high cost of living, swindling and lying, and for democracy, free elections and the EU”. The leaders of most opposition parties encouraged their supporters to join the march against the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, which has been in power for almost eight years. Smaller gatherings also took place in other cities and towns across Poland. “City Hall estimates (the number of protesters) at 500,000 now,” the organisers´ spokesman Jan Grabiec told AFP. Decked out in the red and white colours of the nation, demonstrators carried EU flags and placards proclaiming “Enough´s enough”, “No to authoritarian Poland” and blaming the ruling PiS party for exorbitant prices. Once the head of the European Council, Tusk addressed the crowds in Warsaw´s historic old town, saying the opposition´s role was “of comparable importance” to that in the 1980s and the fight against communism.