Sobering developments
Aleksander Kwaniewski, a former two-term Polish President, has been officially named the Left and Democrats (LiD) coalition's candidate for Prime Minister. Several high-profile embarrassments are threatening to derail his campaign, however.
The former president was broadly criticized for an intoxicated public appearance during a visit to Ukraine in mid-September. While giving a guest lecture at National Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev, he staggered about and slurred his words. The incident was broadcast by Polish TV stations a week later, on September 22.
"I may have drunk a glass of wine, I may have drunk 10. I have the right to do what I want. I am a free person," the former President later said about the blunder in an interview for TVN, adding that the process of bringing Ukraine closer to the EU requires the occasional "sacrifice." Yet, according to a GfK Polonia survey conducted for Rzeczpospolita daily, 76 percent of those polled felt that Kwaniewski's behavior damaged the image of Poland abroad.
Kwaniewski's gaffe had just slipped from public debate when daily tabloid Fakt reported that he had been registered as a collaborator with the communist secret police (SB) after journalists got hold of his SB file from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN).
Despite these scandals, support for Kwaniewski and LiD has not shrunk. Sergiusz Trzeciak, an expert on political communication and head of the Sobieski Institute explained, "There are those whose failures are not easily forgiven and those whose faults, however numerous, are tolerated, since these politicians have adopted the image of the average Joe. Kwaniewski is of the latter type." He noted that Kwaniewski's drunken 1999 visit to the Kharkov cemetery of Polish officers murdered by the Soviets shocked the public, but did not stop him from being re-elected a year later.
