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As the ruling AWS (Solidarity Election Action) party moves inexorably closer to the events that will make or break the political movement this year's elections for the presidency and next year's for Parliament the realization that AWS may fail these two crucial tests is causing increasingly public fractures to appear. The combination of more and more public divisions, together with the increasingly laager-like mentality of the movement's leadership, bode ill for future political success.
For example, last weekend saw what few people in Polish politics had yet seen: an open challenge to the authority of AWS and Solidarity leader Marian Krzaklewski, not from one of the increasingly frustrated political party allies of Krzaklewski, but rather from within his own political camp. At the Congress of the Conservative Peoples' Party a small but influential party within the AWS alliance Maciej Plazynski, the speaker of Parliament, strode up to the stage and declared publicly "I do not agree with Marian Krzaklewski". The issue? Superficially, over the question of whether or not AWS ought to run internal primaries to determine its presidential candidate, but in reality over whether Krzaklewski ought to maintain his grip on the movement. Krzaklewski has resisted such primaries, knowing full well that they could be used to cause the emergence of an alternative leader within AWS such as Plazynski himself.
Plazynski's move to identify himself as Krzaklewski's heir within AWS met with a swift response from both Krzaklewski and Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek himself. Privately, Krzaklewski assailed Plazynski for playing politics as a nominally independent Parliamentary speaker and sabotaging Krzaklewski's campaign plans. Plazynski, however, stood his ground, and a scenario is now developing in which, unless Krzaklewski quickly declares his willingness to be a candidate, Plazynski may move in to fill the vacuum himself.
The incident served to further isolate Krzaklewski and Buzek within AWS, where they can now only rely for support from their core party members, rather than among any of the political party leaders who were loyal supporters only two years ago, but who have since become increasingly alienated and frustrated by the AWS leadership style. Until now, however, Buzek had been more flexible than Krzaklewski, and more prepared to tolerate within his chancellery high-ranking officials linked to the parties causing Krzaklewski so many problems. That tolerance came to an end over the weekend, when two ministers Wojciech Arkuszewski, secretary-general of the Conservative Peoples' Party, and Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, the chief of the prime minister's political cabinet and a member of the Christian-National Union party both resigned their offices.
The reason? Officially, both officials kept quiet, although their party colleagues were quick to blame their own increasing isolation inside the chancellery at the expense of an increasingly informal "kitchen cabinet" forming around the prime minister. And the main culprit? Teresa Kaminska, officially head of the Health Insurance Supervisory Office, but among Polish journalists and political insiders long identified as the main influence on Buzek's personnel and political decisions. Buzek has been increasingly under fire from AWS political leaders for his leadership style, and subject to open calls for his resignation and replacement by a more dynamic leader. In the past, when faced with criticism, Buzek's reaction has been to retreat into his bunker and shoot the messenger; that was the fate of his previous head of chancellery, Wieslaw Walendziak, who was dismissed as soon as his warnings of disaster ahead began to be perceived as too persistent and public.
This accusation, however, cannot be levelled at either Arkuszewski or Marcinkiewicz, who voiced their disquiet personally, and who appear to have been eased out merely as a result of their association with critical parties. The first replacement, by AWS MP Michal Wojtczak, illustrates the increasing bunker mentality in the chancellery. He is an unspectacular but loyal figure, a member of the AWS Social Movement (RS AWS) party which the prime minister nominally leads, and above all a confidant of Teresa Kaminska. Now, with one exception, all of the officials closest to the prime minister are from the RS AWS party.
The increasing reliance of Marian Krzaklewski and Jerzy Buzek on close loyalists rather than the party leaders within AWS is perhaps understandable. But it is an indication that as government and AWS popularity continues to nose-dive, the near future will bring no decisive moves to sort out the government's basic problems, but rather only a tendency to batten down hatches. Small wonder politicians like Maciej Plazynski, who are aware of their own talents and sense the mood for change, are considering jumping ship before it sinks completely.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
