Abortion, gay rights to soothe the poor?
by Aleksander Nowacki
Some Left Democratic Alliance (SLD) deputies have a Midas touch of sorts: whatever they touch turns to dribble. Abortion and gay rights are, without a doubt, very serious issues. Yet, no one in their right mind can fail to see that the recent ideological offensive by SLD backbenchers, who have called for the legalization of gay marriage and abortion on demand, is nothing but a thinly-veiled attempt to woo disaffected left-wing voters - with no likelihood of the measures actually being implemented. As with SLD's secretary general Marek Dyduch's remarks about the church "bullying SLD," the real reason for the ruling party rediscovering its "left-wing identity," is the government's extremely low approval ratings.
No more than two years ago, the then-opposition leader Leszek Miller said, "If we promise that pigs will fly, then they will." Since then, unemployment has risen, the government has been shaken to its foundations by a series of corruption scandals and several ministers have demonstrated basic incompetence. To add to these troubles, next year's budget has met with such a strong response from the financial markets and experts that the government has been compelled to take steps towards reducing the budget deficit in the medium term. The basic tenet of fiscal policy in this country is that government spending has to be cut. Since, however, Economy Minister Jerzy Hausner's plan envisages an expansion of public-administration employment by some 100,000 bureaucrats next year, he has been forced to look for savings in the overblown social security sector. This has naturally angered the SLD hard-liners, who see it as yet another plan to shift the burden of economic reforms onto the shoulders of the poorest sections of society. That Hausner wants to take away those benefits that are claimed fraudulently is not the point: what matters is that politicians show their "social sensitivity." Take the unusual outburst of honesty from Krzysztof Martens, the party's leader in the poorest region of the country, Podkarpacie. "The spending cuts are good for the country," he said, "but suicidal for SLD."
Prime Minister Leszek Miller has put on a brave face by saying "what is good for the country is good for the party," (a curiously symmetrical reversal of what was said at the time SLD's predecessor, the PZPR, was in power). But not all cabinet ministers have managed such a heroic stance. Marek Pol, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, supports the cuts in his role as minister and opposes them as the leader of SLD's coalition partner Labor Union (UP). Pol has gained a richly deserved reputation as probably the most incompetent member of the cabinet and has now added spinelessness to his list of credentials.
But some opposition parties have come near to matching Pol's laughable efforts. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Law and Justice (PiS), said that Hausner's plan to cut spending was a good one and so his party will not support it. "There is no way this government can get the plan through parliament," Kaczyński said. Obviously not, when even those who think it good for the country refuse to support it.
