Demonstrators hold Polish and EU flags during a protest outside the Parliament building in Warsaw, Poland December 17, 2016. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

Polish opposition leaders called for days of anti-

government demonstrations Saturday after police broke up an hours-long blockade of the Polish Parliament by protesters who claim that ruling party lawmakers are violating the constitution. Several thousand people responded to that call in Warsaw and other cities.

Organizers pledged to return and keep blocking Parliament’s main hall, despite the threat of arrest. About two dozen members of the opposition Civic Platform had been taking turns sitting in the legislature’s plenary hall through the night until they were forced out early Saturday.

Despite being ousted, the protesters vowed to remain at the gates of Parliament. “We will be on the streets until they are done destroying the country,” Mateusz Kijowski, the leader of the Committee for the Defense of Democracy movement, told protesters.

Poland’s biggest political standoff in years began Friday, when opposition lawmakers, objecting to plans by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to curb media access to Parliament, blocked the plenary hall podium ahead of a budget vote.

PiS lawmakers later moved voting to another area without media access, prompting accusations that they had passed the 2017 budget illegally, breaching the constitution.

In response, protesters blockaded the exits from the Parliament building, which is when police moved in.

Opposition party lawmaker Jerzy Meysztowicz told television network TVN24 that police used tear gas to disperse the protesters who tried to prevent the convoy carrying Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of PiS, and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo from leaving. Warsaw police spokesman Mariusz Mrozek denied use of tear gas but confirmed that physical force was used to remove protesters.

The clash with the opposition has highlighted a growing divide in Eastern Europe’s largest economy, with some Poles increasingly angry over the PiS government’s efforts to assert more control over state institutions.

Since coming to power, PiS has passed laws that made it more difficult for the constitutional court to pass rulings, a move that led the European Commission to say democracy and rule of law were threatened in Poland.

The nationalist-minded, euroskeptic PiS party has also tightened control over public news media and state prosecution. The party has approved legislation that human rights groups said would curtail freedom of assembly.

“If it becomes clear that it is impossible to talk to (PiS lawmakers), we should have early elections,” Ryszard Petru, head of the liberal Nowoczesna grouping, told protesters in front of Parliament.

A snap election is unlikely, however, as PiS holds an outright majority in Parliament and would be able to overrule any vote of no confidence.

Despite criticism at home and abroad, PiS enjoys steady support among many Poles eager to hear its message of higher welfare, more Catholic values in public life and less dependence on foreign capital.

Government officials deny behaving undemocratically and have accused opposition leaders of fomenting dissent.

Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in an interview with RMF-FM private radio that the opposition blockade of Parliament was an “illegal attempt to seize power.”

And Szydlo, the prime minister, speaking at an event with firefighters in the southern city of Krakow, said opposition politicians “have forgotten we need to respect each other and we need to be responsible.”

“For many, the focus of their activity is brawls,” she said.