Editor's note: A bad reputation

Why? In the last days of his term Kwaśniewski is putting the reputation he has built for the past ten years at risk in order that his crony not be incarcerated.

His presidency started off with a scandal because of lies about his higher education. Controversy over his wife's holding shares in "Polisa" roused debate in the Supreme Court before the court finally approved the results of the 1995 elections. Their decision was not unanimous, though.

During his presidency Kwaśniewski got away with a number of tricks, the best known being getting drunk before visiting Polish soldiers' graves in Charków and starring in an advert for a well known brand of furniture. But these tricks did not influence Kwaśniewski's popularity and didn't lose him support in the polls. What's more, during the 10 years of his presidency, he even managed to get some anti-communists to warm to him, presenting himself as a man of the center. He distanced himself from his own party - the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) - the direct heir of the communist party, which ruled over the People's Republic of Poland for 45 years.

However, last year disquieting flaws in the image of President Kwaśniewski started to appear. They revealed a frightening image of a Poland corrupted by a network of shady relations between politics and business. One of them is the investigation into the case of the former deputy minister of internal affairs Zbigniew Sobotka. He was accused in the so-called 'Starachowice scandal' of revealing a state secret for private reasons (Sobotka warned his acquaintances about a planned police intervention) and was sentenced to three-and-a-half years imprisonment. Kwaśniewski has just announced he is planning to grant him a pardon because he is a person of unblemished reputation.

The outgoing president doesn't want to wait for the court's decision, openly ignoring the Polish judiciary and favoring his own interests over that of the state. Polish public opinion has begun to question just what it is that Sobotka knows, that is causing the president to risk his reputation in order to save him from prison.

Eliza Durka

Editor-in-chief