Krzaklewski decides
At last: a decision in Polish politics. In a country where the refrain "it will be decided shortly/next week/next month" is almost the only news that slips from the lips of politicians and officials, it's refreshing to see movement in at least one crucial area: whether or not Marian Krzaklewski, the leader of the Solidarity trade union and Solidarity Election Action (AWS), will be the "candidate of the right" in the presidential elections coming up in the autumn of this year.
The last few weeks, if not months, have been dominated by the "will he, won't he" debate, and not surprisingly so. Last week's opinion polls gave serving President Aleksander Kwasniewski 70% of the vote, with Krzaklewski weighing in with a mere 5%. Both Krzaklewski and his political allies have wrestled with allowing his candidacy to go forward but as time has moved on it has become clear that at least from Krzaklewski's perspective the cost of not doing so was potentially greater than the risk of losing heavily to the incumbent president.
Krzaklewski's decision was announced at the annual congress of Krzaklewski's party, the AWS Social Movement (RS AWS). Technically, the congress vote and Krzaklewski's acceptance means he has agreed to be the RS AWS candidate for president, but he still has to be accepted by the broader AWS coalition movement. That means Krzaklewski has to obtain the support of the other three main parties within AWS, the Conservative People's Party (SKL), Christian-National Union (ZChN) and Polish Christian Democrats (PPChD). However, events of the last few weeks show that support for Krzaklewski's candidacy among these parties, who together can block his formal nomination by the AWS coalition, is lukewarm at best.
Their ambivalence toward Krzaklewski derives not only from a dislike based on their perception that Krzaklewski has ridden roughshod over their interests in the past, but also because of a gut belief that he simply cannot win, and the style of campaign they fear he will run. Party pollsters have convinced Krzaklewski that he can garner 30% of the vote in a campaign run by setting up "deep blue water" between himself and Kwasniewski. Krzaklewski and his allies are especially fearful of the potential challenge from the more extreme right, led by Jan Lopuszanski, the Eurosceptic MP removed from AWS for insubordination two years ago. Krzaklewski's campaign strategy will be to seek to take over Lopuszanski's territory, raising the fears among some observers that such a move will lead to a disaster in any second-round contest with Kwasniewski, who will run as a moderate, appealing to the center ground as well as to his core post-communist electorate.
Leaders of the SKL party and some other parties continue to believe that a much better candidate than Krzaklewski in appealing to this elusive middle ground would be Maciej Plazynski, current speaker of the lower house of Parliament. They see Plazynski as an embodiment of the AWS spirit untainted by the inefficiencies and bad practices of the current government. He is also a man whom the Freedom Union (UW) coalition partner has signaled they would support as a joint AWS-UW candidate. That would mean Plazynski running a more moderate campaign, but also raises the specter of Lopuszanski or a similar radical making a play for the more right-wing vote. Plazynski's supporters accept this danger, but probably rightly suspect that Lopuszanski's single-issue obsession with the European Union (EU) is not something that will garner him many votes in the election itself.
But Krzaklewski remains opposed to Plazynski for the fundamental reason that any elevation of the speaker into an official AWS role will be setting up a potential rival for himself in the future. Although they do not say so openly, that is also precisely the reason why the party leaders want Plazynski to be the AWS candidate. Until now, their attempt to ditch Krzaklewski and promote Plazynski has centered around a proposal that AWS run primaries competed presumably by Krzaklewski and Plazynski to generate the official AWS candidate. Krzaklewski, knowing that such a mechanism might cause him to lose the nomination, has fiercely resisted it, and his decision to put himself forward as a candidate regardless is seen as an attempt to stymie the revolt by the parties and Plazynski.
Now, many party politicians are prepared to accept Krzaklewski as the final candidate, but at a price: a change of government, with the replacement of Buzek by Plazynski. The idea, first floated last year, is once again gaining ground, although with greater fears that the constitutional maneuver required to remove Buzek is fraught with the risk of failure and subsequent dissolution of Parliament by Kwasniewski. Few other than the most frantic observers are able to fully follow these successive twists and intrigues within the governing coalition. And that is perhaps the best answer as to why Kwasniewski enjoys the massive lead in opinion polls he currently has.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CED Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl.
