Blessing in disguise
There's little doubt about what the political topic of the week in Poland has been: the resignation of the head of the presidential National Security Officer, Marek Siwiec, following the political row that blew up when he was accused of mocking the Pope. The broadcasting of three-year-old video footage revealing the disdain in which the Pope is held by a top presidential official could have only one conclusion: a massive political row that has finally brought life into a hitherto moribund election campaign.
The incident involved Siwiec parodying the Pope's gestures of blessings, and then his habit of kneeling to kiss the ground on arrival in a foreign land, a scene that was recorded in 1997 by a local television company covering the visit of both Siwiec and President Aleksander Kwasniewski to the Polish city of Kalisz. As is typical of the Polish media, the footage deemed to be embarrassing to both Siwiec and to Kwasniewski, who is seen to be encouraging the former in the video was suppressed until it fell into the hands of Kwasniewski's presidential opponent, Marian Krzaklewski, head of the Solidarity Election Action (AWS) party. Knowing a gift when they see it, Krzaklewski's team immediately placed the footage into a campaign ad that was then broadcast nationally.
There are several aspects of the case that are important for Polish politics. Siwiec's reaction, which was to tender his resignation immediately, ranks as a first in a country where even politicians who are heavily compromised continue in public office and public life. The usual reaction would have been to tough it out, yet it is Siwiec who may yet do Polish politics some good by introducing the principle that a politician caught making a mistake even three years earlier pays the price. It remains to be seen, however, whether the resignation really marks the end of Siwiec's political career. Siwiec is nothing if not a combative politician, having cut his teeth in the communist youth movement in the 1980s, and then carved out a position as a key defense, security and intelligence player at Kwasniewski's side. He remains potentially valuable to the president, who for several days bizarrely refused to accept the resignation, and even defended the disgraced minister.
Secondly, the matter illustrates how much of a taboo the Pope remains. In a country that has few figures of national authority, he remains the only individual who is universally respected. Even the Catholic Church as an institution is regularly attacked in the media, but the line stops at the Pontiff. By the end of last week, the incident threatened to become a major liability to Kwasniewski's campaign as town councils in Poland started to pass motions boycotting the president, or submitting charges of slander to the courts. Catholic bishops called for Kwasniewski to resign, and even the liberal press was filled with articles and letters condemning the president. If Kwasniewski had a message in the campaign, the row has successfully drowned it out.
Thirdly, the incident marks a new phase in the presidential campaign, which until the attack ad was aired had been in danger of inducing a catatonic daze in the populace. Its airing was a deliberate ploy on the part of Krzaklewski's campaign team, headed by former journalist and ex-head of the prime minister's chancellery Wieslaw Walendziak, to up the stakes in the face of continuing low poll numbers for Krzaklewski. The scheme is to polarize the electorate into making a choice for or against Kwasniewski, with Krzaklewski as the clear anticommunist alternative. At the very least, the plan is to remove enough floating voters from Kwasniewski so as to prevent him from obtaining more than 50% of the vote, and so forcing a second-round contest between the two men. Even though few of even Krzaklewski's staff expect him to win that battle, the hope is to generate enough of a vote to preserve the position of Krzaklewski inside AWS, and therefore also the unity of the weakened right-wing ruling party itself.
Finally, the incident once again reflected the poverty of investigative reporting on Polish television, and the degree to which the media have become fearful of broadcasting any material that might damage the ruling president. The tape in question lay suppressed for three years, together with additional footage showing Kwasniewski drunk at a military cemetery containing Polish officers murdered by the Soviets during World War II. Political campaign ads which by law must be broadcast unedited by state television remain the only avenue for showing to the populace material that is embarrassing to their ruling elite.
Time will tell whether the incident will remain a blip in an otherwise uneventful campaign, or whether it will provoke a broader debate on the morality of the political class in Poland and the power of the media to conceal its failings. If the latter is the result, then Siwiec's removal from power will not have been in vain.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
