Cleaning house at the treasury
The news last week that Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek had sacked Emil Wasacz as treasury minister and replaced him with Andrzej Chronowski, previously a deputy speaker of the Senate, was both expected and a surprise. Expected, because there had been rumors for six months that Wasacz's days as minister were numbered, and a surprise because most had expected Wasacz to survive the attacks against him, and that ultimately Marian Krzaklewski, the leader of Solidarity Election Action (AWS), would be successful in defending him. Wasacz's departure, however, marks another element in the slow erosion of Krzaklewski's influence within the government.
When Buzek's government was formed three years ago, few observers were under any illusions that the crucial Treasury Ministry would fall to AWS, and in particular to a Krzaklewski loyalist. The reason was obvious: It was in that ministry that decisions would be made that would involve establishing the playing field for foreign investors for many years to come. Because the previous government, made up of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and Polish Peasants Party (PSL), had delayed making several crucial privatization decisions, it had left the 1997 AWS government with much to do in crucial sectors such as steel, power, telecoms and communications. The power of patronage during such decisions is huge, and the possibilities of influence exerted and obligations extracted enormous.
Although Wasacz had started off as a union activist in the Huta Katowice steelworks, he had quickly advanced to run the company before moving into the private sector and National Investment Funds (NIFs) during the PSL-SLD government. So when Krzaklewski was looking for a loyalist, as well as someone who had real experience of the international investor community to run the ministry, Wasacz was the logical choice. Together, however, Wasacz and Krzaklewski were but half of an important power equation that was making crucial privatization decisions. The other half consisted of a close friend and former colleague of Wasacz's, the current head of the Huta Katowice steelworks, Miroslaw Wrobel, and the enigmatic Miroslaw Kasza, chief fundraiser for the AWS movement. Together the four men were effectively the arbiters of the most crucial privatization decisions in Poland over the last three years, often generating decisions that the prime minister had little knowledge of, or influence over. Now, a crucial link in that decision chain has been ruptured.
Wasacz's removal came as the inevitable consequence of two parallel forces. One involved external parliamentary pressure on Wasacz to go, pressure generated not only by the opposition, which tabled a motion of no-confidence in him last month, but also by AWS parliamentarians themselves, many of whom were likely to support the no-confidence vote in Wasacz when it was due to be voted on at the beginning of September. One of the problems for Wasacz was that in every privatization decision he made, there were inevitably a swathe of losers, each with its own set of political backers. Over three years, that generated a critical mass of MPs within the AWS caucus calling for Wasacz's head. Wasacz also managed to alienate the right wing of the AWS caucus by resisting the two issues that they had made their cause celebre: the so-called enfranchisement bill, and the institutionalization of a de facto monopoly in the sugar industry. Taken together, Wasacz's position became untenable.
The other factor relates to Buzek's increasing drive for emancipation from Krzaklewski. Ever since the government became a minority administration after the departure of the Freedom Union (UW), Buzek has been making a range of ministerial nominations without consulting Krzaklewski. Chronowski's nomination follows this pattern, especially since it has been no secret to insiders that Chronowski has been highly critical of Krzaklewski and Wasacz, especially over their defense of the much-criticized deal to sell the shares of state insurance company Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen to the Eureko consortium.
So the Treasury Ministry is definitely not the place it was only a month ago. Not only has Wasacz been replaced by a man who has ruptured the informal string-pulling that was being exerted by Krzaklewski, but last month's departure of State Secretary Alicja Kornasiewicz also means the end of the informal influence exerted by the UW, and especially by former Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz.
The removal of Wasacz and Kornasiewicz represents much less a victory of "populist" forces than it does the prime minister deciding to appoint a minister who will be loyal to himself rather than to informal coteries of power outside the government. And for Chronowski, there is still much to be done. Although pessimists feel that the government has no more than eight months of life left in it before next spring's early elections, sectors such as energy and defense still await crucial decisions. Buzek and Chronowski will be wanting to demonstrate their credibility by making those decisions this time, themselves.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
