Limbering up for the autumn race
Local elections will probably take place on November 12 and, although no date for the ballot has been officially set, the race is gaining momentum. The outgoing Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, will run for Warsaw president. Technically he will be running as an incumbent; once the formalities are cleared he will take over from the acting Warsaw President, Mirosław Kochalski, who has held the post since the previous President of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyński, was elected President of Poland.
Law and Justice (PiS) politicians are adamant that this is not a demotion for Marcinkiewicz. "Law and Justice treats local elections very seriously and we agree on one thing with Donald Tusk - that whoever wins the elections in Warsaw, will win the local elections in Poland. That's why we want the work begun by Lech Kaczyński to be continued by one of the most popular Law and Justice politicians, Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz," said Przemysław Gosiewski, now head of the cabinet standing comittee.
Clubbing together
Marcinkiewicz, who is from Gorzów Wielkopolski, might have some serious competition, but it is likely that the two coalition parties, Self-defense (SO) and the League of Polish Families (LPR), will support him. SO has two people currently singled out as possible candidates, Grzegorz Tuderek and Marek Czarnecki, but Janusz Maksymiuk, deputy chairman of SO's parliamentary club, does not exclude the possibility of the party supporting Marcinkiewicz. "We'd do better to make agreements together with PiS and LPR," says Maksymiuk.
Wojciech Wierzejski, one of the leaders of LPR and the party's candidate for Warsaw President, announced that he might pull out of the race. During the party's recent convention, leader Roman Giertych declared: "After the elections, together with our friends from PiS and Self-defense, we will set up coalitions in all Polish voivodship councils and towns."
The competition
Marcinkiewicz's main challenge will probably come from Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, one of the leaders of Civic Platform (PO). Gronkiewicz-Waltz has been a long-term candidate for the post, and is likely to get the party's nomination. In the years 1992-2000, Gronkiewicz-Waltz was president of the National Bank of Poland, and in 1995 she ran for the presidency of the country, but got a mere 2.76 percent of votes.
It is not known yet whether the leader of Social Democracy of Poland (SdPl), Marek Borowski, will take up the gauntlet. Borowski aspires to be the candidate of an allied left, and he doesn't want to repeat the mistake from last year's presidential election, when Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) did not officially support him. "If Democratic Left Alliance, the Democratic Party (PD) and the Labor Party don't come to the conclusion that Marek Borowski's candidature makes the most sense, Borowski will not take part in these elections at all," said SdPl spokesperson Arkadiusz Kasznia.
Several political parties have been gearing up for the local elections for some time now. Ruling PiS was first out of the blocks with its "closer to people" television campaign in mid June, which it insists is not a promotional campaign for the local elections, as this would breach campaign rules. LPR has changed its logo and hopes its results will be at least as good as four years ago, when it received some 15 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, left-wing parties decided they would be stronger if they united. SLD, SdPl and PD intend to take part in the local elections together.
