All quiet on the electoral front

The Democratic party in the US swept to an emphatic victory, easily claiming a majority in the House of Representatives and fighting a tooth-and-nail battle for control of the Senate. Both parties rolled out their big guns during the bitter campaign, and the Republicans in particular lost some high-profile generals in the aftermath, most notably Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Virginia's George Allen, who lost his Senate seat and with it the likelihood of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

Election fever gripped the US in the past weeks and saw both parties launch largely negative campaigns that had the country debating the issues of the day, most notably Iraq and the state of the US economy. In Poland, just days before local elections that could have shored up the ruling coalition's precarious position of power, the contrast couldn't have been greater. Few political stories troubled headline writers in the Polish media, policy matters were put on a back burner, and candidates largely avoided taking a solid position on any issue.

Quiet candidates
While local elections are rarely an electrifying spectacle, lacking the cut-and-thrust of debate, strategizing and lavish budgets associated with their national counterparts, the weekend's polls were significant, particularly given the animosity between the ruling coalition and the largest opposition party, Civic Platform. Add to this some highly controversial last-minute changes to the electoral law and the country should have witnessed a campaign where both parties sought to prove their mettle and delineate clearly what they stood for. Instead, Polish voters got a damp squib, with the parties' national leaders more prominent in the election posters than the local candidates.

Warsaw's mayoral race is a case in point. Any 'debates' between the leading candidates - PiS' Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, PO's Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz and Marek Borowski of the Leftist block - consisted of little more than people agreeing with each other on broad issues. Wringing one's hands and saying that Warsaw's infrastructure needs to be improved is a poor stump speech at best, and the aspirants missed a chance to suggest practical, effective solutions to the city's problems.

The Warsaw candidates, like the majority of local-election hopefuls, relied on the electorate to vote along party lines, regardless of individual policies. This was a mistake and showed a lack of confidence on their part. Had any candidate come up with concrete plans, on a macro or micro scale, they could have made solid inroads into their opponents' voter base. Instead, Warsaw is left with generic solutions to obvious problems, none of which eloquently bespeaks the supposed leadership skills that the capital's next Mayor should bring to the table. 

A source of trouble
Polish-US relations also took a beating as disparaging comments about Education Minister Roman Giertych made by Kenneth Hillas, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Poland, found their way into the press. Hillas was lambasted by the Polish government for suggesting that senior government officials who do not toe the official line would, in most circumstances, lose their positions. It didn't take long for the storm in a teacup to brew into a national outrage, at least in PiS' view, with Prime Minister Kaczyński fuming that "nobody from the outside is allowed to interfere with the activities of the Polish government."

Hillas merely pointed out what is the norm in government circles elsewhere in Europe and the US. What is more worrying is that the comments made their way to the press via notes taken during a meeting between Hillas and Leszek Jesień, Secretary of State in the Prime Minister's Chancellery. These notes also contained information regarding cooperation between the US and Poland on intelligence in North Korea. If government officials are leaking documents from meetings between heads of state and senior representatives then it will not be long before the stream of foreign dignitaries coming to Warsaw slows to a trickle and Poland truly becomes an international pariah. l

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