The summer is over... for good
By Aleksander Nowacki
"Watch out! They're back!" Last week's headlines sounded warning bells as the government ministers returned from the summer break. And well they might, since when the politicians are back in the capital, it is pretty clear that the sleepy, mafia-run town of Starachowice has no chance of gripping the nation's attention any longer.
It fell to Aleksandra Jakubowska, the head of the prime minister's office, to stage an ominous first appearance after the summer. Testifying before the Rywingate commission for the second time (she was called to clarify the apparent inconsistencies of her previous statement), "Jakubowska sank herself," as one of the commission members reportedly said.
Still, it has not been the government that has drawn most of the media's attention throughout the week. Prime minister Leszek Miller made a desperate effort to grab the headlines with a promise "to do everything in my power to ensure a flat 19% CIT rate" in 2004. Yet the focus remained squarely on the parliament.
First, the lower house speaker, Marek Borowski of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), "chucked in the bin" the bio-fuels bill after it was discovered that some words were illegally added to it by a middle-rank civil servant, who thus completely altered the meaning of the whole document. It is not yet clear who exactly is guilty of counterfeiting that particular bill, or whether it was the result of a genuine mistake, and the speaker won plaudits for acting so promptly. Nevertheless, the incident has created a nervous atmosphere in the parliament. The realization that the substance of a bill can be altered at will (or by mistake) by anyone willing to waste ink on it is frightening enough. Even worse, though, is the widespread fear that (yet another) commission may be set up to investigate this affair.
Counterfeit parliamentary bills are all the rage right now. "That's sooo last season" was heard from all quarters and still politicians kept piling it on. Marek Borowski, the speaker and hero of the bio-fuels bill counterfeiting story, this time emerged as the villain of the piece, when the Law and Justice (PiS) deputies accused him of fiddling with the motion nominating Jan Czekaj, an economist with links to the SLD, to the Monetary Policy Council (RPP).
Professor Czekaj was named as a replacement for a member who had died in a car crash this summer. The parliament, PiS deputies said, nominated Czekaj for the remainder of that member's term, which is up in January of next year. Borowski however, was concerned that this would be in breach of the constitution, which states that a RPP member is elected for four years. The motion, allege Borowski's detractors, was published without a reference to the end of Czekaj's term, which was an act of counterfeiting on the speaker's part.
Borowski replied by calling PiS allegations a "dirty political game." They're back on form.
