So what’s it all about then?

If AWS does indeed fail to enter Parliament, it would spell disaster for those politicians who run it.
By : Marek Matraszek

   Most political eyes are now turned to the upcoming elections on Sept. 23, and the electoral battle between Leszek Miller’s Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the three or four other parties that hope to get into Parliament. That battle, however, has two important aspects to it. One is, of course, who gets to form the new government. But there is another no less significant struggle at play, namely who gets to play the role of opposition, and, more importantly, starts to rebuild their political forces in preparation for future elections.

   If you’re confused by the recent spate of sackings and scandals, and why these seem to be happening at the tail-end of the government, the truth is that it is because many government politicians are being driven by the second, rather than the first, agenda.

   The past few months have seen frantic efforts by what remains of Solidarity Election Action (AWS) to ensure that it is that group of politicians who are currently in charge of the alliance to be the ones to deal the cards on the Right after the elections. That urgency is a function of the fragmentation of AWS in recent months, when two broad factions of politicians departed from the organization they had helped to create in 1996 and 1997.

   One faction on the more moderate, free-market wing of AWS moved aside to help create the Civic Platform (PO), which is riding second in the polls behind the SLD, while a second group, more conservative, departed to create the Law and Justice (PiS) movement headed by former Justice Minister Lech Kaczyński. Now it looks as though these two groups will be the ones to enter Parliament, while those politicians heading the rump AWS may find themselves failing to pass the electoral threshold.

   If AWS does indeed fail to enter Parliament, it would spell disaster for those politicians who run it, since it would be they, led by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and his supporters such as Economy Minister Janusz Steinhoff and Labor Minister Longin Komołowski, who would face near-certain political oblivion and take full blame for the collapse of Poland’s Right. Little wonder, therefore, that many observers see AWS, and specifically the prime minister’s office, focusing efforts on weakening PiS and PO rather than combating the SLD. The removal of Lech Kaczyński as justice minister was seen as specifically aimed at weakening PiS, as was the commencement of investigations into the finances of the Culture Ministry after its head, Kazimierz Ujazdowski, left the government. In little-noted moves, the prime minister and his close advisers have also been instrumental in recent weeks in launching an assault on the Radio Plus network, an important media initiative controlled by the former head of Buzek’s chancellery, Wiesław Walendziak, also now seen by Buzek as a rival on the Right.

   At the same time, the prime minister’s office has secured a curious ally in its attempts to build up the much-damaged credibility of Buzek, in the shape of the center-left Gazeta Wyborcza daily. That paper has never been a friend of Buzek’s, but close inspection of its editorial line reveals it to be sparing in its criticism of Buzek, and strangely unsympathetic not only to PiS, but especially to PO. It is no surprise to see Gazeta Wyborcza and its editors attacking PiS politicians, since the latter remain the most effective politicians on the center-right in undercutting the left-liberal ideology that guides the world view of the newspaper’s editors. But its assault on PO politicians, especially its campaign head and Warsaw Mayor Paweł Piskorski, is especially striking. The reason? Quite simply, PO is threatening to replace the Freedom Union (UW) party as the main political force in the liberal center of Polish politics. The UW has long been the pet political poodle of Gazeta Wyborcza to the extent that the newspaper at the last elections was the UW’s main campaign donor. Now, with the UW’s potential demise, the editors are faced with the gruesome prospect of having no direct political arm through which to influence the Polish political scene. So it makes sense to seek to undermine the PO, and by hook or crook push the withering UW into Parliament.

   On the side of what is now the opposition-in-waiting, therefore, a winner-takes-all battle is taking place. The rump AWS, and the increasingly minuscule UW, represent the core set of politicians who have dominated the non-communist side of Polish politics for the past 10 years. Were they to be eliminated at the forthcoming elections, the baton on the center and right of Polish politics would be picked up by a set of politicians who, although not entirely blame-free for the debacles of the last four years, are at least seeking to redefine what anti-communist politics should look like. That opportunity, of creating a non-communist opposition that is both free market and conservative, rather than statist and reactionary, is within the grasp of Poland’s Right – unless, that is, the combined forces of Jerzy Buzek and Gazeta Wyborcza manage to prevent it.

   Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw Director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl (mailto:director@cec.com.pl)