Crossing the Rubicon
Two weeks ago, Marian Krzaklewski, the leader of Solidarity Election Action (AWS), was still a confident man. Despite having come a disappointing third in the presidential poll, his final tally of votes over 3 million, and 15% of the vote meant that he felt he could hang on in his position. In this assumption he was strengthened by previous experience, in which opposition within AWS to his leadership has always fizzled out at the crucial moment. Yet over the past week, it seems that he was mistaken. Krzaklewski is currently facing the most concerted threat to his position since the creation of AWS in 1996.
Four years ago, there were good reasons for the leaders of Poland's right to rally around the head of the Solidarity trade union. In 1993 they had been defeated in parliamentary elections by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and forced onto the defensive, with few resources and a multiplicity of leaders. The Polish right has been traditionally plagued by divisions and arguments, and the realization that unless some semblance of unity was established they would never return to power forced them to look to an outside patron. The fact that Krzaklewski belonged to none of the existing parties made it easier to form the AWS movement, but Krzaklewski and the Solidarity trade union also brought with them what was lacking most: money and organization. The absurdity of a right-wing movement being led by a unionist was conveniently ignored.
The fact that AWS under Krzaklewski brought not only unity but also electoral victory in 1997 meant that the traditional right-wing parties inside AWS were prepared to give their new-found savior the benefit of the doubt in the first year or so of the government of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. But disillusionment quickly began to set in. Krzaklewski grated on most of the traditional right-wing leaders because of his perceived upstart qualities. Most of the latter had spent years thinking, writing and reading the principles of liberal-conservative philosophy, yet Krzaklewski was not the sort of man to enjoy a leisurely conversation about the relative intellectual merits of Raymond Aron, Leo Strauss or Roger Scruton. Their frustration at being forced to kowtow to a silver-tongued union boss was compounded by their distaste at Krzaklewski's methods of exerting political influence over the government of which he was not a minister, and his exclusion of them from the process of real decision making inside AWS. Although there existed formal mechanisms of power within the movement, these were regularly circumvented by Krzaklewski and a kitchen cabinet of union friends around him.
The most important cause of political tension, however, resulted from a fundamental disagreement with Krzaklewski about the nature of right-wing politics. Krzaklewski in practice defined it as above all the exercise of political power using many of the same mechanisms of influence that had been introduced by the SLD governments of the 1993-1997 period, exploiting the unclear relations between politics and the economy. In terms of ideology, Krzaklewski was wedded to a fundamentalist approach, focusing on traditional anticommunist sentiment laced with an obsession with the Catholic Church and semi-populist policies. Krzaklewski's party opponents instead see the future of Poland's center-right as being that of the champion of professionalism and transparent politics, as well as involving a shift to a more moderate liberal-conservative policy line, looking to the British and American conservative movements as a model.
Until his relative failure at the presidential elections, Krzaklewski was able to maintain power inside AWS by arguing that there was no credible alternative to his leadership and that he was the natural harbinger of success. That has now changed. The party leaders heading the current revolt against Krzaklewski recognize that a parliamentary campaign under Krzaklewski means political doom not just for them, but for the whole of AWS. Seeing their leader as a captain intent on steering his ship into an iceberg, they have decided that the only chance of survival is to unceremoniously dump him overboard, a goal they are pursuing with great relish.
The question now is how long it will take to lever Krzaklewski out of his position. The internal statute of AWS is constructed so that he cannot be removed without the permission of his own party, the AWS Social Movement (RS AWS). Even the latter is by no means a reliable ally, however, containing within it open enemies of his leadership, such as parliamentary Speaker Maciej Plazynski and former Interior Minister Janusz Tomaszewski. Despite Krzaklewski's current bluster, it seems increasingly clear that he will at best emerge from the current challenge severely weakened, perhaps forced to surrender his chairmanship of the AWS parliamentary club. Another sacrifice might be to dilute the power of the Solidarity trade union and RS AWS in favor of the traditional parties inside AWS.
Poland is a country where political careers are made at lightning speed, yet political downfalls take years to drag out. The signs are that for Krzaklewski, the long downhill slide has finally begun.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
