Meltdown time
An analysis of the implications of the new U.S. president for Polish-American relations will have to wait another week or possibly longer in light of the unprecedented events across the Atlantic. But political drama was not limited to the United States this week, as the long-running conflict within the ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) movement threatened to finally come to a head with a potential split that at the very least would be the final nail in the coffin of Poland's center-right in next year's elections, and at worst represent divisions on the right that would ensure the political dominance of Poland's left for years to come.
The current crisis, which revolves around an attempt to remove current AWS leader Marian Krzaklewski from his position as chairman of the movement, has been festering since presidential election night in Poland in September, when Krzaklewski was pushed into third place by incumbent President Aleksander Kwasniewski and centrist candidate Andrzej Olechowski. Krzaklewski's enemies saw this as an opportunity to finally exact political revenge on a man they saw as inevitably leading them to defeat in next year's parliamentary elections. But this task has proved more difficult than even Krzaklewski's opponents expected, and now tensions have grown to the extent that the very stability of the government is being challenged.
In order to understand how AWS has got itself into this mess, it is necessary to understand the complex nature of the beast. Most casual observers are unaware that AWS is not a political party, but a coalition of four or five distinctly separate political forces, frequently at loggerheads with each other and frequently divided into smaller factions within themselves. The current political argument is a perfect example of the main fault lines running not even between these forces, but across them.
The broadest way to understand the current crisis is to read it at as being one where the three main political parties within AWS have lined up against the other main players inside the movement: the Solidarity trade union and its close political ally, the AWS Social Movement (RS AWS) party. The three parties the Conservative Peoples Party (SKL), the Polish Christian Democrats (PPChD) and the Christian-National Union (ZChN) are minuscule by normal political standards, but contain relatively speaking the brightest and best of Poland's center-right politicians, many of whom enjoyed ruling in the first post-communist governments 10 years ago. One key motivating factor is frustration at having to play second fiddle to what most of these politicians regard as upstart newcomers and careerist hacks inside RS AWS.
Yet the picture is complicated by the fact that the actions of the leaders of these political parties are being actively challenged by senior members of their own parties, who have sided with Krzaklewski and other RS AWS politicians in resisting immediate calls for his resignation. Again, in many cases these politicians are motivated by self-interest, insofar as they are those who lost elections to the leadership of their parties in the spring of this year, and are resentful of the power of their new chairmen. At the same time, RS AWS nominally led by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, but in reality controlled by Krzaklewski and his allies is itself divided into fierce Krzaklewski loyalists and those willing to countenance his removal. In many cases, their figurehead leader is not Speaker of Parliament Maciej Plazynski, who has been spearheading the campaign to remove Krzaklewski, but rather former Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Tomaszewski, removed last year as a result of charges of being a former collaborator of the communist secret police. Poland's so-called Lustration Court is due to decide soon on whether Tomaszewski lied or not in his vetting statement, and the signs are that he will be cleared. In the medium term, Tomaszewski is likely to move against Krzaklewski as revenge for the latter's desertion of him in his hour of need.
Superimposed on all of these internal divisions is the emergence of a split that is potentially fatal for Buzek himself: the growing militancy of the Solidarity trade union and its representatives in the parliamentary caucus of AWS. These unionist players are keen to demonstrate to AWS politicians that they are the real masters, and the best opportunity to do this, apart from supporting their removal from AWS, is the upcoming budget vote in Parliament. The latest suggestions are that it is not inconceivable that Solidarity unionists will vote against the budget as a nod to their own electorate, despite the fact that such a vote would cause the budget to fail and bring about the collapse of the Buzek government. Precisely the same calculations occurred in 1993, when the Solidarity union caucus in Parliament voted against the right-wing government of then Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, with the result that the subsequent elections were won by the post communists.
It remains to be seen whether Poland's center-right will remain united over the next week. But if it starts to fragment, do not be surprised to see history repeating itself.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
