A post-referendum fourth republic?

by Chris Mularczyk

There is much speculation in the quality press of late on the Third Republic having run its course and the need for a fourth one. It has all obviously been triggered by the unpopularity of the present political elites (according to one poll, 93% of the voters do not trust any current politician) and the fallout from the Rywingate affair. The economic crisis is a further catalyst for this explosive cocktail, as is Poland's imminent membership in the European Union.

There can be no immediate resolution to the crisis of confidence. The Rywingate affair and Healthgate are not enough to sweep away the current elites. The existing electoral system should help them to survive one more election. However, once it dawns on the voters that accession to the EU is not a miracle cure for the country's ills, the pressure for change will grow. Expect calls for:

- An amendment to the constitution increasing the power of the president over the executive branch of government (probably giving him the power to put down motions of no confidence and increasing his ability to dissolve the Sejm)

- Changing the electoral system, probably returning Poland to the French two "rounds of voting" system which the country had in the parliamentary elections in 1989 and which it currently has in the direct elections for mayors of local governments

- Removing creatures such as the KRRiTV and the Monetary Policy Council (because of imminent entry into the euro-zone) from the country's constitution

However, there are some snags with this scenario. It is obviously modeled on France's transition from the Fourth to the Fifth Republic. The trouble is there is no de Gaulle-type figure here to carry it off. The French Fifth Republic in its early years functioned as a virtual dictatorship. We are now almost 50 years on and such political practices as were witnessed then are probably impossible to repeat. The Polish Fourth Republic is therefore unlikely to be such a radical departure in the public life of the country as was the French Fifth Republic.

The second and far more serious snag is the fact that in the next election Samoobrona may just take enough seats in the Sejm (one-third) to stop any change in the constitution being made. If Andrzej Lepper were to repeat Jörg Haider's Austrian feat of taking 27% of the vote and thereby topping the poll in a Polish general election, under Poland's current electoral system (the d'Hondt counting method of translating votes into seats), he would secure around 35% of the seats.

Being the canny and ruthless politician that Lepper is, he would then realize that even if he could not form a de facto government, as no one would coalesce with him, he could still run the country by default. The strength of his opposition would be such that the new government would be doomed to failure from day one. That government (probably one formed by PiS, PO, PSL and LPR) would be trapped between contradictions within its own ranks and Samoobrona blocking any necessary constitutional changes.

The nightmare scenario set out above should make the current decision-makers think hard about changing the voting system right now. A changed voting system would stop Lepper dead in his tracks, just as the majority system has stopped Jean-Marie Le Pen in France. Majority voting systems stop extremists from being elected. In addition, they reduce the power of flip-flop parties to dictate the agenda. They tend to consolidate large parties and lead to a clear bipolar system of competition between large blocks of the left and the right, both gravitating towards the center to win fan advantage over the other. This is not only the experience of the English-speaking democracies with a two-party culture, but also of much more pluralistic societies such as France and Italy.

Any chance of a new political force breaking through and securing these changes? Not in the short term. There is no chance in a proportional representation system of getting a new party to get the votes required to secure anything close to a majority in the Sejm. Getting a two-thirds majority in the Sejm is pure science fiction.

Aleksander Kwaśniewski still has time to do something about this. If the SLD summons up enough courage to depose Miller, he can persuade them to go a step further and with support from the PO to call a referendum on changing the electoral system and making other constitutional changes. It really is his last chance to do something significant about the quality of government in this country.