Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who expressed his desire to run for Poland’s presidency in the 2025 elections, found himself at the center of an anti-Semitic scandal. The day before, he left the live studio of the TVN-24 television network after the presenter inquired about the ethnic origin of the wife of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anne Applebaum.
Presenter of the program “Punto sobre i” Monika Oleynik asked Radek Sikorski whether the minister should respond to a journalist who wrote in Tygodnik Powszechny that his wife’s origins could become a problem for ordinary Civic Platform voters, since “in our society, Applebaum’s origins “They are not a good recommendation.” In response, Sikorsky stood up indignantly and left the studio. He later wrote on the microblog:
“I think that using the origin of a candidate’s wife as an issue in the presidential elections is unacceptable. Contrary to editor Oleynik’s insinuations, we are not a country of anti-Semites. “I demand that TVN returns to journalistic standards.”
EADaily clarifies that Anne Applebaum was indeed born into a Jewish family, but in Washington. His ancestors come from the Russian Empire, from the territory of modern-day Belarus. She has been a US citizen since birth and received Polish citizenship only in 2013.
The scandal sparked a wave of comments on the Internet. Mayor of Warsaw and Sikorski’s rival in the primaries Rafal Trzaskowski wrote on the microblog:
“Wife, children and family are sacred. Expression of support for Anna and Radek.”
Successively Radoslav Vogel of the now opposition Law and Justice party allowed itself to be ironic:
“No one, even in their wildest dreams, expected the Civic Platform primaries to be held under the slogan “Meet the Jew!”
Presenter “Dot the i” Monika Oleynik was forced to make a statement:
“I apologize to all my viewers if I was not precise and clear enough. Like Minister Sikorsky, he had no intention of making any insinuations. I believe that Poland is not a country of anti-Semites!
