POLAND’S populist government, led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, has seen its fair share of protests since coming to power in late 2015. Demonstrators gathered on the streets of Warsaw when the government sought to weaken the constitutional tribunal and pack it with loyalists. They did so again when it purged more than 130 journalists from the state media. Thousands of black-clad women took to the streets against a plan to make it even harder to get an abortion. But the wave of protests since December 13th, including a parliamentary sit-in by opposition MPs, suggests that discontent is still growing.

The latest discord started on December 13th, the 35th anniversary of martial law in communist Poland. That day the government passed a law restricting freedom of assembly. Sites for demonstrations can be reserved for up to three years, it says, but preference will be given to “cyclical” rallies marking “especially…important events for Poland’s history” (rather than, say, protests against the actions of the government). Any counter-protests have to be at least 100 metres away. Thousands marched in the freezing cold to denounce the reform.

Discontent spread more spontaneously a few days later when the government proposed restricting the movement of journalists in parliament. Rather than mingle with MPs in the corridors, reporters would be confined to a separate media centre. Only the government media, now stuffed full of PiS supporters, would be allowed to record inside the parliamentary chamber.

In protest, Michal Szczerba, an MP from Civic Platform (PO), one of the two main opposition parties, stood up to speak with a note emblazoned “free media in the Sejm [parliament]”. He was reprimanded by the speaker of the house and barred from the debate. Dozens of other politicians joined him on the podium, where they then sat for several days (see picture).

This caused the parliamentary session to be moved to another room, where PiS politicians pushed through a budget. Other MPs say there were no opposition members present; some claim that they were not allowed into the room. “We do not know who voted, whether they really had a quorum,” says Rafal Trzaskowski, a PO politician. The vote was illegal, he thinks.

The turning point

The kerfuffle in the Sejm marks a new stage in Polish politics. It follows months of growing dismay at the increasingly cranky government. In July the European Commission declared that the changes made to the constitutional tribunal endangered the rule of law. PiS had three months to respond, but merely shrugged.

Well-known politicians, including Lech Walesa, a former president whose Solidarity movement brought down communism, complain that Poland is reversing two decades of democratic progress. In an interview with Politico Mr Walesa said the EU should eject Poland. In a speech on December 17th Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council and former Polish prime minister, warned about the dangers to democracy.

PiS’s tentacles are spreading from the government and media to civil society. In a recent interview Beata Szydlo, the prime minister, claimed that “billions” of zlotys of public funds are going to NGOs loyal to opposition politicians. To correct this, Ms Szydlo wants to set up a National Centre for the Development of Civil Society that will take over the management of funds for NGOs. Adam Bodnar, Poland’s national human-rights defender, finds this alarming. Liberal NGOs are terrified of being frozen out. In November a series of animated diagrams on state television’s evening news portrayed NGOs as a crony network that grew rich on taxpayers’ money. Arrows linked these allegations to George Soros, a Jewish philanthropist and supporter of many left-liberal organisations.

Recent events seem to have galvanised both PO and Nowoczesna (“Modern”), two centrist parties. If they could work together, they might be able to hold the ruling party to account. Recent polls suggest that their combined support is bigger than PiS’s. And the economy faces headwinds. It grew at an annualised rate of 2.5% in the third quarter, the slowest since 2013. Foreign investors are wary. EU bodies are still mulling over how to deal with the changes to the constitutional tribunal.

PiS supporters argue that the reactions to recent events have been overdone. The party, which leads in the polls, still has the support of many voters, particularly outside Warsaw, thanks to popular policies such as a cash hand-out for parents and slashing the retirement age. But it is skating on thin ice.