Dirty tricks?
Relations between the current government and Poland's state-run television have never been good, but last week saw the tensions at the highest level for some time, as a result of the broadcast of a television program at prime-time, which openly accused current coalition politicians including by implication the current Justice Minister Lech Kaczynski of corruption. The broadcast has also opened anew debate about the nature of the so-called FOZZ financial scandal, one of the murkiest in recent Polish political history, and seemingly still capable of shaking the political establishment.
To understand the nature of the current row, it is necessary to go back well over 10 years, and establishment at the tail-end of the communist period of the Foreign Debt Servicing Fund (FOZZ) by the then-authorities. The idea was relatively simple: Poland was burdened by more than $40 billion of foreign debt, and one way to reduce it would be for Poland to buy up her own debt at knock-down prices on the world's secondary debt markets. A small problem: such actions are illegal, and the essence of the FOZZ fund was to set up a network of companies and intermediaries to do the business. The very nature of the operation was that it could be staffed only by intelligence operatives or their close collaborators, and kept in total secrecy.
After the coming of democracy into Poland, and successful negotiations to reduce Poland's debt, the fund was put into liquidation. At this point it was discovered that substantial sums of money seemed to have been siphoned off by the fund's board, resulting in senior members being charged with fraud and theft. Poland's arduous legal system is such that no trial has yet concluded on this aspect of the scandal. The television show prepared in great secrecy and at considerable expense by Polish TV accused senior politicians associated with Lech Kaczynski's new Law and Justice (PiS) party of having received several hundreds of thousands of these stolen dollars in the early 1990s, to finance their then-party Center Alliance (PC) and its nascent media interests.
These are serious charges indeed. Yet they were laid before opposition politicians on the basis it seems solely of the statements of a discredited fugitive criminal, with no attempt made by the journalists to verify his accusations. Most Polish newspaper journalists have rounded on state television, accusing it in leader articles of betrayal of journalistic ethics. Lech Kaczynski vehemently denied the story, and with his brother Jaroslaw, accused Polish television of instigating a vendetta on the eve of an election campaign that shows the PiS party gaining genuine popularity in the country. Comfortingly for the Kaczynskis, even senior members of other non-communist parties, who have known the brothers for decades, have rallied to their support.
Leaving aside the substance of the allegations, which are indeed incredible, the whole affair has brought back into public debate two issues that relate to the substance of Polish democracy. The first relates to media independence. Nobody now questions that Polish state television, especially news reporting, has fallen into the hands of politicians, specifically those linked to the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party. Last month, Poles were surprised to read of the whistle being blown by the disgruntled former editor of the SLD daily newspaper Trybuna, revealing the weekly meetings between SLD leader Leszek Miller and media heads, including those from state television, at which the party line for that week's broadcasting would be laid out. Polish television itself is run by a chum of President Aleksander Kwasniewski, as is Polish television news. Cynics might argue that any government is fair game for the media. But with a change of government fast approaching, it looks as though Poland will soon be a country where Parliament, government and the media will be under the total control of one political party the SLD.
Secondly, the FOZZ affair has revealed the dark underbelly of Polish politics, involving seemingly long-forgotten operatives of Polish communist intelligence and their unsavory allies among the criminal underworld. Ten years ago, when the Kaczynski brothers first went public about their concerns about the failure of the new democracy to clear out ex-spooks from Polish decision making, their fears were laughed off as paranoid. Now more and more senior politicians are beginning to realize their mistake, as evidence continues to emerge about a murky alliance between these characters, the criminal underworld, and even some politicians. Few of the biggest deals happen without the thread of benefits seemingly leading back to them.
No one is saying that democracy is threatened, but as the current row plays out, it does expose the fragility of the achievements of the last 10 years, and how what had seemed to be a foregone conclusion media independence and democratic accountability in the decision-making process is in many cases far from being achieved.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl (mailto:director@cec.com.pl)
