Young people played an important role in the recent Black protests. PAimages/Wiktor Dabkowski. All rights reserved.
The end of the year in Poland was marked by anti-government protests. Opposition MPs occupied the plenary hall of the parliament with protesters blockading the building outside. The parliamentary crisis that erupted was a successive conflict caused by the Law and Justice (PiS) government's ambitions to subjugate the country's institutional framework.
When parliament reconvened in January, the standoff remained factually unresolved, but the opposition suspended its actions while the government pressed through its contested bills. PiS' chairman, Jarosław Kaczyński, had managed to outmanoeuvre the opposition which, to make matters worse, was also hit by two scandals of its own making.
