Man the lifeboats
Few subjects can have generated more words among Poland's center-right politicians than the desperate need for the ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) coalition to get its act together in the face of near-certain annihilation at the next parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2001. For well over a year now, opinion polls have remained stubbornly more or less the same: The latest last week put AWS at 19%, compared with 44% for the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party. Translated into parliamentary seats, that would provide the SLD with an overall majority in Parliament, even despite the existence of a proportional representation electoral system.
So over the last few months, AWS leaders have been begging, cajoling and even threatening AWS leader Marian Krzaklewski to simply do something to force a revival even at this late stage of AWS fortunes. Until now, the focus of criticism has been three-fold. Firstly, there has been a long-standing need to improve the workings of the AWS parliamentary club.
Because of a leadership system that makes lines of responsibility and authority unclear, the parliamentary club has increasingly fractured into a vague coalition of interest groups, some no more than a few strong, each pushing its own special interest and feeling less and less loyal to AWS as a whole. That is why it was so easy a few weeks ago for Treasury Minister Emil Wasacz to almost be removed by a vote of no-confidence by AWS MPs themselves. Secondly, there is increasing frustration at the continuing failure of the government to stamp its authority on key areas of policy, and an almost general assumption that Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek has little or no real power to make decisions that are not sanctioned by either Krzaklewski or an informal group of advisers and party officials. And finally there is a steadily growing sense of panic that, with just eight months to go before the presidential elections, AWS has yet to even commence discussion about nominating a candidate for the contest, let alone start fundraising and campaigning. In contrast, acting President Aleksander Kwasniewski has already appointed his campaign manager and is currently undergoing his regular electoral makeover in the shape of a crash diet, ready for public appearances.
So it was with some sense of expectation that AWS MPs gathered in Warsaw last week in what was billed as a "make-or-break" meeting to thrash out these key points on the AWS agenda. And for those already used to the way AWS works, the result was no surprise: no decisions were taken, and all matters are to be reviewed again at another meeting in two weeks' time. Neither was it surprising, given the mutual loathing that many AWS MPs feel toward each other, to see the session marked by walkouts, accusations and thinly disguised insults. And the fact that the non-results were eagerly seized by state television, controlled by SLD opposition politicians, did nothing to help AWS poll ratings either.
So that begs the question, why is Krzaklewski and the AWS leadership acting in a way that seems to guarantee electoral defeat? There are a whole range of reasons, but they essentially boil down to two. One is that of practical politics, in that any attempt to make deep-reaching changes in the workings of either the government or parliamentary club would make it impossible to recover internal political equilibrium within AWS, given the fact that the only thing that keeps AWS and the government together is a complex web of inter-relations between individuals, ministers and parties, which would be almost impossible to reconstruct in any new configuration.
The second factor is much more tied with political power for Krzaklewski and his closest colleagues. Elevating a new man as prime minister, redistributing power inside the AWS parliamentary club, or even supporting another candidate for president, would all have the effect of diluting Krzaklewski's authority. Krzaklewski in turn, is looking not only at power now, but also control over AWS after the next elections. The strategy seems to assume that AWS will be a rump party in the next Parliament, but for the current Krzaklewski leadership it is important that they will control it.
This will be achievable not only if they control the electoral lists for the probable mandates at the elections, but also if they do not permit an alternative center of authority to arise that could challenge their leadership after the near-certain electoral disaster that beckons. In turn, total control of an AWS rump so the thinking goes will assure power after an eventual victory in elections in 2005. Reform AWS now and that strategy faces collapse.
Although this strategy brings a new meaning to the phrase "forward-looking politics," it is line with the experience of AWS leadership until now. Yet opposition to it has also reached unprecedented heights within AWS, and it may be that the next few weeks will force a schism in AWS that will bury the movement for good.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
