The dream is over

With the election now over, it’s time for the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) to put its money where its mouth is.
By : Marek Matraszek

   And so it ends. The miserable vote accorded to the Solidarity Election Action (AWSP) coalition led by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek at the elections this past weekend marked the end of an era in Polish politics, at least as far as Poland’s right is concerned. Future historians, one suspects, will have a field day in dissecting how it was that a political movement that came to power with 34% of the vote in 1997 managed, in the space of four short years, to fritter away its base of support so dramatically, and effectively end the careers of politicians who had been mainstays of Polish politics since 1989. The question now arises of what alternative will be built on the center and right of Polish politics to counter the overwhelming superiority of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).

   Four years ago, it seemed the right had finally got its act together. The previous four years had been spent in the political wilderness, as a result of the divisions and splits that had bedeviled them ever since the overthrow of communism in 1989. Marian Krzaklewski, the chairman of the Solidarity trade union movement, managed to cobble together a broad church alliance of liberals, conservatives, Christian democrats, nationalists and trade unionists to form the AWS coalition that gained power in 1997, to the surprise of many including the SLD. Yet even that victory had been won more by voters extending their trust to an unknown and untested group of politicians, and in resentment toward what were seen as “four wasted years” of SLD rule between 1993 and 1997, rather than any positive message or appeal of AWS itself. The splits and maneuvers that quickly came to dominate the government of Buzek were a direct function of the lack of real political and programmatic cohesion in AWS, as well as the overbearing presence of the Solidarity trade union and Krzaklewski. If he did not know it before, Buzek has surely learned now that voters treat with contempt those politicians they perceive as weak, and in fact want to be led by strong personalities – which explains at least in part the scale of Leszek Miller’s victory.

   The second key reason for the collapse of the Buzek-led right has been the disgust of ordinary center-right voters at what they perceive as betrayal by AWS of fundamental ethical principles. AWS came to power four years ago on an anti-corruption ticket after several years of SLD scandals. Yet very quickly and publicly it became clear that AWS was not able to prevent itself merely slipping into the same murky world of corrupt relationships and mechanisms left to it by its predecessors. There still remains a significant right-wing vote among the electorate, yet it cannot bring itself to vote for AWS.

   In retrospect, however, the last four years will not be seen as entirely wasted, and in many ways Krzaklewski and Buzek have to be congratulated for the fact that they managed to keep the more populist elements in their union and party under control. At no small political costs to himself, Krzaklewski frequently managed to stave off actions by Solidarity trade unionists against various aspects of the government’s policies that in ordinary circumstances would have exploded into mass protests. Secondly, it is often forgotten that it is only because of AWS that Leszek Balcerowicz was able to become finance minister in the first place, and indeed it was AWS who voted him into his current job as head of the National Bank of Poland. Yet these concessions of Buzek and Krzaklewski to economic rationality were often bought at the price of compromises in other areas of policy, which in the medium and long terms have had the effect of ensnaring the country’s economic and political system in a web of relationships and dependencies that have brought the country close to the corporatist model of state organization that Western Europe has long shaken off.

   There will be opportunity aplenty in future columns to examine how far Miller and the SLD will be able to effect a disentanglement. But during this new parliamentary term, do not take your eyes off a parallel political story, which will be the attempted reconstruction of a non-socialist alternative to the SLD. This time around, the baton seems to have fallen above all to the politicians around the Civic Platform (PO), which came second in the elections and is soon to be transformed into a proper political party. The PO leadership seems set to spend the next four years in opposition, building themselves up to a position where in 2005 they are in a position to seek both victory in parliamentary and presidential elections. What is significant is that this opposition to the SLD will be built around present-day policies, not in relation to memories of the past as in the case of AWS. It seems an uphill task, but Polish politics – as the last four years have shown – remain volatile and open to huge voter fluctuations. If Miller and the SLD fail to cope with the challenges before them, then that possibility will begin to look real indeed.

   So, although one dramatic chapter in Polish politics closed this last weekend, another no less dramatic chapter is opening up: that of Prime Minister Leszek Miller. The tests that face him will be of a different kind than those that were faced by Buzek, and in many ways they are even more difficult. Miller knows now more than ever that the Polish people are an impatient master, and that if he is not careful, they may yet exercise the same verdict toward him as they did toward Buzek.

   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)