Here to stay
When the breakaway Civic Platform (PO) emerged into Polish politics last month, reactions from the political establishment tended to fall into two extremes either huge expectations that PO would revolutionize Polish politics, or that the PO was a "flash in the pan" that would disappear as soon as it had emerged. Although PO has only been around for a few weeks, the reality is becoming increasingly clear that PO is here to stay as a permanent force in Polish politics, and that its impact is based in social forces to which the existing establishment has failed to respond.
Last week saw the first opinion polls published, taking into account PO. In themselves, they signal a definite shift in voter preferences in the run-up to this year's parliamentary elections. In the two or three published, PO has been scoring around 17%. At the same time, the vote for the putative future governing party, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), appears to have fallen below the 40% threshold that would assure SLD of an overall parliamentary majority in an election. The ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) movement remains moribund at around 12-14%. But the real loser seems to be the Freedom Union (UW), from whose ranks most of the leaders of the new PO have come, and which is now barely registering 5% on a national level, representing a catastrophic drop from the average of 10-12% that the party was reading before Christmas.
Interestingly the vote for PO represents almost exactly the vote scored by one of its leaders, the former Finance and Foreign Minister Andrzej Olechowski, when he ran for president last September. That seems to point to a stable constituency that sees the values of PO as representing its real interests.
What is this constituency? Put simply, the new Polish middle class, currently totally disenfranchised by the existing political parties that seem rooted in the social interest groups of the past rather than those of the future. Take a look at what is currently on offer: firstly, AWS itself, which insofar after the internal chaos it has suffered over the last year, seems to have retreated into its core base of Solidarity trade unionists as well as traditionalist Catholic voters. The only constituent party within AWS that was attractive to more mainstream voters the liberal-conservative SKL party has been torn apart by internal strife and its leader, Jan Maria Rokita, sidelined in the AWS leadership. Then there is UW, which, following the departure of current National Bank head Leszek Balcerowicz as leader and the elimination from its leadership of its free-market liberal wing, seems to have retreated into a narrow representation of intellectual and state-sector employees. The Polish Peasant Party (PSL) retains its belief that the road to political success leads through the narrowly defined representation of farmer interest. Finally, SLD to many voters remains an untenable alliance of unionists, social-democrats and opportunistic "liberal reformers" that will present no clear political course or vision once elected into power in the forthcoming elections.
What is interesting, therefore, is that the social base of all existing Polish parties essentially are the social classes generated by state socialism from the 1950s onward: state workers, bureaucrats, inefficient peasants, impoverished intellectuals, and communist careerists. Yet since the start of the economic transformations of the 1990s, a whole new social stratum has been slowly developing. These are independent entrepreneurs and their families, low-unionized private sector employees, aspiring young people looking for a home for their families, and more broadly; the increasing section of society that defines its economic interests through the perspective of a taxpayer, rather than as the recipient of state handouts. Moreover, this section of the Polish population is growing year by year. Now, with the emergence of PO which represents a clear but moderate, liberal-conservative program articulated by determined leaders they have found a voice.
That is why those politicians who either think that PO will disappear, or who have decided to attack it as being led by an opportunistic rabble of political renegades, are making a serious mistake. Other liberal movements that emerged and disappeared in the past did so when their social base was much narrower than it is today, and before most political parties had established themselves as representatives of corporatist interest groups. And by attacking PO, they are also attacking an increasingly large segment of the voting public that in the future will make or break elections.
Much remains in the hands of the PO leaders. But if they play their cards right in other words, stay on message, and organize for the upcoming elections they will emerge as the second force in Polish politics. They may be faced with four years in parliamentary opposition, but then they will be preparing for governing Poland after 2005. The middle class revolution has started.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw Director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl.
