More than he bargained for
Lech Kaczyński is the second most trusted politician in the country, with only President Aleksander Kwaśniewski able to count on higher support among the masses. With the trust of 55% of the electorate vested in him, this attorney and law professor came one step closer to fulfilling his political ambitions when he took the post of Warsaw mayor three months ago.
Kaczyński, who had previously shied away from Warsaw politics, was somewhat of a long shot in the mayoral elections. But he managed first to defeat former presidential candidate Aleksander Olechowski of the PO and then, in the second round, crushed current Health Minister Marek Balicki of the SLD, winning by an overwhelming majority. His victory is attributed to a Giulliani-esque programme that offered a mix of "Zero Tolerance" principles and more domestic sounding promises of fighting a system that hires an army of corrupt bureaucrats. It seems that his forceful programme filled a void between what Varsovians perceived as empty-worded SLD rhetoric and Olechowski's spectacular double failure.
Carrying his fifteen-step scheme out is another matter entirely.
"This position presents an interesting challenge to me. I knew it would be difficult but I had no idea to what extent," Kaczyński told the Business Journal when asked about his thoughts on the past three months at City Hall.
He is now the key decision-maker in a city that has recently undergone a major administrative upheaval in which the 11 gminas were scrapped in favour of one large Warsaw gmina and subdivided into smaller, less independent districts. How does a dissident and opposition leader feel about working within such a centralised format? He is hardly nostalgic when he describes rebuilding the administrative structure from scratch.
"There was no such thing as an administrative structure of the capital city," he said. "Previously Warsaw was a communal union, a union of gmina Centrum and ten other gminas. Centrum was the largest and also the richest part of Warsaw. From that we created one administration and we have more or less completed that process. So we are on a pretty good way (of carrying that out)." But the former Justice Minister and Supreme Board of Inspection chief is hardly going to rest on his laurels any time soon.
"We," he says of the Warsaw authorities, "still want to make the administration more efficient.
"Central administration in Poland is still not the way it ought to be but it is incomparably more efficient than before. I would like to see Warsaw's self-government admi-nistration as efficient as the central administration. This may not be a great achievement, but it would mark a significant improvement."
Then we arrive at Kaczyński's pet projects, fighting crime and corruption, which have earned him the nickname of the sheriff, somewhat unlikely considering his diminutive physique.
"We want the city guards (Straż Miejska) to become "assistant police". The police force has three general tasks: preventive and operational tasks and investigation. We want to prepare city guards to provide the police with preventive assistance in the city. We want Warsaw to be well patrolled by the police forces, and this new system would be a great improvement to the situation."
Kaczyński is also planning on battling the phenomenon of corruption and although he is hesitant to divulge his precise plans, he praises the new, more centralised system.
"We would also like to limit, as radically as possible, anything that has to do with pathological behaviour, particularly corruption. We should discuss this openly because it is a problem that is common to all capitals of the former communist countries," he said. "Just recently, my deputy was in Prague at an anti-corruption conference where our model of fighting the problem through centralisation was praised.
"The first and normal reaction to a centralising system like communism was anti-centralising behaviour, but right now we are centralising Warsaw management, particularly in those fields that were strongly tainted by corruption, such as construction permits, architecture, urban planning and real estate."
Which, in a rather roundabout way, gets us to the real subject of the interview - the property situation in Warsaw.
"We have almost finalised the reform of public tenders. I have managed to gather great people who have been working very hard at it. We are pursuing the issue of transparency with public tenders, not only where old tenders are concerned but also the transparency of post-tender procedures."
"There is a mess concerning the land registry. Improving this system will take many years and will end after I leave office, but we would like to bring more order to the matter. Foreign investors are particularly concerned about this field, probably more so than I am. They simply have different habits."
The talk turns to the investor-led construction boom of the 1990s. Kaczyński is on thinner ground here and prefers to stick with the standard topics.
"The situation has led to chaos," he says. "We would like to limit the process of decentralising the city. Because of land prices, office parks are moving to Warsaw's southern borders as well as into Wola. This is a bad process because it empties the centre. We would like to prevent this. I think the "City of Warsaw" should be built near Towarowa street, that's where it was planned."
"Another issue is the area surrounding the Palace of Culture. This is a big problem because an intensive office development there could lead to complete traffic congestion in the city centre. The only solution would be to construct a tunnel under the city centre, but we do not have the money for that.
"Chmielewski (see next article) has a very clear urban plan for Plac Defilad and I would be more than happy to accept it, if I knew there was a guarantee the city centre will not suffer from a traffic catastrophe. As it is, the city is using its maximum traffic capacity. From that point of view, the decentralisation is a blessing in disguise as it relieves the city centre from even more cars."
When asked about the hotly debated issue of a ring road, he understandably gets defensive. Earlier this year the local press was very critical of Kaczyński for not being aware of plans to have the A2 highway run through the district of Ursynów in a tunnel under the residential area.
"I can't answer this question yet. Major investments in Warsaw are not my main goal," he said. "Many of them have already been made: a tunnel, two bridges."
But he does admit, "Roads are the most important part of city investments, but also the most expensive. We will continue with the construction of the ring road, but there are also many new ideas, particularly those that suggest modernising existing roads and joining them with new links, thus creating ring roads."
He seems much more comfortable talking about his plans for restructuring the city's finances, another of his favourite topics.
"I have to bring Warsaw finances to their feet. Currently the city debt is not very high, but it is rising at a very fast pace. We need to cut down. That is why my major concern is the change of the quality of governing, and to a much lesser extent, some major successes in the realm of investments because those would have to be linked to a very risky financial policy."
"But there is the concept of a public-private partnership, which I find appealing in some cases; for instance, the Port Praski investment. The area where the development is planned is now the Warsaw Bronx, but could easily be turned into a very attractive piece of real estate. The area is located virtually in the centre of the city. Miasteczko Wilanów is also a good idea, but not with a huge hypermarket that would lead to further road congestion. We will try to create good conditions, but we will also require one to offer good conditions for the city."
I ask him if a bridge could be built by a public-private partnership. He does not think so and shies away from the prospect of being indebted to a private investor in the long-term.
"This may not be very profitable for the city. I would not want to involve myself in policies that would not be loyal to the city."
He concedes that the use of financial tools to spread expenses over time is inevitable and declares, "of course, we will issue city bonds... but one cannot leave debts for the next authorities."
"In Poland a city can only go into 60% debt, whereas in the EU it can go into 120% debt and in some cases there is no limit at all, such as in Berlin. If we had that kind of option in Warsaw, we could say we are in a good situation because right now Warsaw's debt is slightly over 30%."
But Kaczyński shows his true colours when talking of the potential privatisation of WKD, the suburban rail system. Privatisation and public-private partnerships of any strategic importance are obviously not to his liking.
"I do not support the model where Polish cities' communication is operated by private firms. I support private or foreign investment in things such as developments, office schemes as well as production-related developments in Warsaw... but where we are talking about heating, city transport, water and plumbing I don't hide my scepticism towards privatisation, and especially giving these companies up to foreign investors."
He goes even further: "EU accession doesn't mean that nations and their interests cease to exist."
To prod him further, I ask his opinion on a EU directive restricting the use of some salt-based solutions on the roads in winter. He is clearly agitated.
"After many years of no independence, we are about to move into another situation like that. Even if a directive exists right now, it is not binding here. From the different products that we know of, salt is most effective."
We return to our main topic, and Kaczyński describes what he believes the city can do to attract investors.
"We can only do one thing, as we cannot affect the tax system; we can prepare good plots of land. The reason why many investors were hesitant to enter our city was the problem that many locations in Warsaw have an uncertain legal status. We would like to encourage investors to come to locations that will not have restitution claims."
"Objectively speaking, Warsaw has the best investment conditions in Poland, it has the highest education rate, and although the unemployment rate is rising it allows for hiring well-educated employees."
Again, he is not happy with the areas being invested in and would like to see more investment going into production facilities in and around Warsaw. The opinion has proved to be more than controversial, as Kaczyński suggests focusing new investments on the industrial sector.
"We would only like to slightly alter the structure of the investments in Warsaw and promote investments that are production-based in nature, of course as long as they adhere to environmental standards."
"The industrial sector in Warsaw has collapsed and even if for social health, Warsaw needs it because there are many people for whom the sector presents the only employment opportunity. A healthy city needs an industrial sector and I am very supportive of that type of investment and am perfectly aware of the fact that those would involve mostly foreign capital."
"Warsaw's strongest manufacturing tradition is based on the electronic sector and there are still plenty of people with those skills."
We end our meeting on a high note, as Kaczyński lists the achievements he would like to leave office with: "Most of all in the sphere of safety and corruption."
"In terms of investments, I'd like to see the construction of new roads, another bridge, more schools, hospital modernisations and the construction of some communal housing," he said. "I would like to see Port Praski developed and see Praga revitalised as well as more improvements done to city water and plumbing systems."
Leaving the Mayor's grandiose office, located right next to the last station of an uncompleted metro line, one cannot help but reflect that the man still seems to be a politician at heart, rather than a city manager. But being a city boss was what won Giulliani the admiration and respect of New Yorkers. Kaczyński, on the other hand, often falls into political rhetoric, proving he cannot help but represent a party that is overtly Euro-sceptic and does not let, or want, his position as city mayor to get in the way of his sympathies.
But is this how Warsaw should be run? Many major European cities are departing from the concept of having politically oriented mayors towards a more business-oriented leadership. Stockholm's authorities created individual holdings to provide city services in a competitive, business-like fashion. In the United States New York's Rudolf Giulliani and Milwaukee's John O. Norquist, have proven that over several years strong mayors are able to re-vitalise the images and personalities of cities that have been previously famous for crime and post-industrial landscape.
Kaczyński, who had previously shied away from Warsaw politics, was somewhat of a long shot in the mayoral elections. But he managed first to defeat former presidential candidate Aleksander Olechowski of the PO and then, in the second round, crushed current Health Minister Marek Balicki of the SLD, winning by an overwhelming majority. His victory is attributed to a Giulliani-esque programme that offered a mix of "Zero Tolerance" principles and more domestic sounding promises of fighting a system that hires an army of corrupt bureaucrats. It seems that his forceful programme filled a void between what Varsovians perceived as empty-worded SLD rhetoric and Olechowski's spectacular double failure.
Carrying his fifteen-step scheme out is another matter entirely.
"This position presents an interesting challenge to me. I knew it would be difficult but I had no idea to what extent," Kaczyński told the Business Journal when asked about his thoughts on the past three months at City Hall.
He is now the key decision-maker in a city that has recently undergone a major administrative upheaval in which the 11 gminas were scrapped in favour of one large Warsaw gmina and subdivided into smaller, less independent districts. How does a dissident and opposition leader feel about working within such a centralised format? He is hardly nostalgic when he describes rebuilding the administrative structure from scratch.
"There was no such thing as an administrative structure of the capital city," he said. "Previously Warsaw was a communal union, a union of gmina Centrum and ten other gminas. Centrum was the largest and also the richest part of Warsaw. From that we created one administration and we have more or less completed that process. So we are on a pretty good way (of carrying that out)." But the former Justice Minister and Supreme Board of Inspection chief is hardly going to rest on his laurels any time soon.
"We," he says of the Warsaw authorities, "still want to make the administration more efficient.
"Central administration in Poland is still not the way it ought to be but it is incomparably more efficient than before. I would like to see Warsaw's self-government admi-nistration as efficient as the central administration. This may not be a great achievement, but it would mark a significant improvement."
Then we arrive at Kaczyński's pet projects, fighting crime and corruption, which have earned him the nickname of the sheriff, somewhat unlikely considering his diminutive physique.
"We want the city guards (Straż Miejska) to become "assistant police". The police force has three general tasks: preventive and operational tasks and investigation. We want to prepare city guards to provide the police with preventive assistance in the city. We want Warsaw to be well patrolled by the police forces, and this new system would be a great improvement to the situation."
Kaczyński is also planning on battling the phenomenon of corruption and although he is hesitant to divulge his precise plans, he praises the new, more centralised system.
"We would also like to limit, as radically as possible, anything that has to do with pathological behaviour, particularly corruption. We should discuss this openly because it is a problem that is common to all capitals of the former communist countries," he said. "Just recently, my deputy was in Prague at an anti-corruption conference where our model of fighting the problem through centralisation was praised.
"The first and normal reaction to a centralising system like communism was anti-centralising behaviour, but right now we are centralising Warsaw management, particularly in those fields that were strongly tainted by corruption, such as construction permits, architecture, urban planning and real estate."
Which, in a rather roundabout way, gets us to the real subject of the interview - the property situation in Warsaw.
"We have almost finalised the reform of public tenders. I have managed to gather great people who have been working very hard at it. We are pursuing the issue of transparency with public tenders, not only where old tenders are concerned but also the transparency of post-tender procedures."
"There is a mess concerning the land registry. Improving this system will take many years and will end after I leave office, but we would like to bring more order to the matter. Foreign investors are particularly concerned about this field, probably more so than I am. They simply have different habits."
The talk turns to the investor-led construction boom of the 1990s. Kaczyński is on thinner ground here and prefers to stick with the standard topics.
"The situation has led to chaos," he says. "We would like to limit the process of decentralising the city. Because of land prices, office parks are moving to Warsaw's southern borders as well as into Wola. This is a bad process because it empties the centre. We would like to prevent this. I think the "City of Warsaw" should be built near Towarowa street, that's where it was planned."
"Another issue is the area surrounding the Palace of Culture. This is a big problem because an intensive office development there could lead to complete traffic congestion in the city centre. The only solution would be to construct a tunnel under the city centre, but we do not have the money for that.
"Chmielewski (see next article) has a very clear urban plan for Plac Defilad and I would be more than happy to accept it, if I knew there was a guarantee the city centre will not suffer from a traffic catastrophe. As it is, the city is using its maximum traffic capacity. From that point of view, the decentralisation is a blessing in disguise as it relieves the city centre from even more cars."
When asked about the hotly debated issue of a ring road, he understandably gets defensive. Earlier this year the local press was very critical of Kaczyński for not being aware of plans to have the A2 highway run through the district of Ursynów in a tunnel under the residential area.
"I can't answer this question yet. Major investments in Warsaw are not my main goal," he said. "Many of them have already been made: a tunnel, two bridges."
But he does admit, "Roads are the most important part of city investments, but also the most expensive. We will continue with the construction of the ring road, but there are also many new ideas, particularly those that suggest modernising existing roads and joining them with new links, thus creating ring roads."
He seems much more comfortable talking about his plans for restructuring the city's finances, another of his favourite topics.
"I have to bring Warsaw finances to their feet. Currently the city debt is not very high, but it is rising at a very fast pace. We need to cut down. That is why my major concern is the change of the quality of governing, and to a much lesser extent, some major successes in the realm of investments because those would have to be linked to a very risky financial policy."
"But there is the concept of a public-private partnership, which I find appealing in some cases; for instance, the Port Praski investment. The area where the development is planned is now the Warsaw Bronx, but could easily be turned into a very attractive piece of real estate. The area is located virtually in the centre of the city. Miasteczko Wilanów is also a good idea, but not with a huge hypermarket that would lead to further road congestion. We will try to create good conditions, but we will also require one to offer good conditions for the city."
I ask him if a bridge could be built by a public-private partnership. He does not think so and shies away from the prospect of being indebted to a private investor in the long-term.
"This may not be very profitable for the city. I would not want to involve myself in policies that would not be loyal to the city."
He concedes that the use of financial tools to spread expenses over time is inevitable and declares, "of course, we will issue city bonds... but one cannot leave debts for the next authorities."
"In Poland a city can only go into 60% debt, whereas in the EU it can go into 120% debt and in some cases there is no limit at all, such as in Berlin. If we had that kind of option in Warsaw, we could say we are in a good situation because right now Warsaw's debt is slightly over 30%."
But Kaczyński shows his true colours when talking of the potential privatisation of WKD, the suburban rail system. Privatisation and public-private partnerships of any strategic importance are obviously not to his liking.
"I do not support the model where Polish cities' communication is operated by private firms. I support private or foreign investment in things such as developments, office schemes as well as production-related developments in Warsaw... but where we are talking about heating, city transport, water and plumbing I don't hide my scepticism towards privatisation, and especially giving these companies up to foreign investors."
He goes even further: "EU accession doesn't mean that nations and their interests cease to exist."
To prod him further, I ask his opinion on a EU directive restricting the use of some salt-based solutions on the roads in winter. He is clearly agitated.
"After many years of no independence, we are about to move into another situation like that. Even if a directive exists right now, it is not binding here. From the different products that we know of, salt is most effective."
We return to our main topic, and Kaczyński describes what he believes the city can do to attract investors.
"We can only do one thing, as we cannot affect the tax system; we can prepare good plots of land. The reason why many investors were hesitant to enter our city was the problem that many locations in Warsaw have an uncertain legal status. We would like to encourage investors to come to locations that will not have restitution claims."
"Objectively speaking, Warsaw has the best investment conditions in Poland, it has the highest education rate, and although the unemployment rate is rising it allows for hiring well-educated employees."
Again, he is not happy with the areas being invested in and would like to see more investment going into production facilities in and around Warsaw. The opinion has proved to be more than controversial, as Kaczyński suggests focusing new investments on the industrial sector.
"We would only like to slightly alter the structure of the investments in Warsaw and promote investments that are production-based in nature, of course as long as they adhere to environmental standards."
"The industrial sector in Warsaw has collapsed and even if for social health, Warsaw needs it because there are many people for whom the sector presents the only employment opportunity. A healthy city needs an industrial sector and I am very supportive of that type of investment and am perfectly aware of the fact that those would involve mostly foreign capital."
"Warsaw's strongest manufacturing tradition is based on the electronic sector and there are still plenty of people with those skills."
We end our meeting on a high note, as Kaczyński lists the achievements he would like to leave office with: "Most of all in the sphere of safety and corruption."
"In terms of investments, I'd like to see the construction of new roads, another bridge, more schools, hospital modernisations and the construction of some communal housing," he said. "I would like to see Port Praski developed and see Praga revitalised as well as more improvements done to city water and plumbing systems."
Leaving the Mayor's grandiose office, located right next to the last station of an uncompleted metro line, one cannot help but reflect that the man still seems to be a politician at heart, rather than a city manager. But being a city boss was what won Giulliani the admiration and respect of New Yorkers. Kaczyński, on the other hand, often falls into political rhetoric, proving he cannot help but represent a party that is overtly Euro-sceptic and does not let, or want, his position as city mayor to get in the way of his sympathies.
But is this how Warsaw should be run? Many major European cities are departing from the concept of having politically oriented mayors towards a more business-oriented leadership. Stockholm's authorities created individual holdings to provide city services in a competitive, business-like fashion. In the United States New York's Rudolf Giulliani and Milwaukee's John O. Norquist, have proven that over several years strong mayors are able to re-vitalise the images and personalities of cities that have been previously famous for crime and post-industrial landscape.
