Time for a clean slate

After a turbulent year that has seen calls for his resignation growing ever shriller, one of Europe's most iconic leaders eventually conceded that he would soon leave his post. Last week Tony Blair made his farewell speech at his party's annual conference, and already the waves of nostalgia are lapping at his door. The detractors' voices are muted and the government can now get on with the business of running the country.

Things are not quite so neat and tidy for Blair's Polish counterpart. Jarosław Kaczyński is fighting a rearguard action to keep his party in power. It began with the sacking of Self-defense (SO) leader and Deputy Prime Minster Andrzej Lepper. PiS wanted to ditch the firebrand farmer, and his strenuous budget demands, and shore up its parliamentary support with a litany of backbench coalition partners. The hope was that these smaller parties would fill the gap left by Lepper and Co without the burden of Lepper's rambunctious ideology, frequent demands and media savvy.

One week later and it seems PiS played a losing hand.

Scrabbling down the back of the cabinet for support has proved more difficult than anticipated. PiS had intended to shore up support with SO dissidents, a policy it managed with some success a year ago with disenfranchised Civic Platform deputies. Lepper had a card up his sleeve though, and last January he had SO Deputies sign what must have seemed an innocuous contract, which said that changing ships midstream would leave them facing a hefty bill of zł.552,000 for essentially using the party's brand.

As loyalty motivators go, Lepper's pieces of paper have so far proved a cynical and ruthlessly effective stick with which to beat down dissenting voices. PiS had its own plan to get around Lepper's contracts, but it seems this falls the wrong side of the ethical lines, and when PiS' vice chairman Adam Lipiński was caught on camera suggesting that PiS could fund SO deputies' penalties from the Sejm's coffers, it seemed the death knell had sounded for the floundering government.

PiS' hold on power has been frail for its 12 months in government, and it has failed to form an effective coalition. Hungarian citizens were up in arms after their Prime Minister admitted his government had lied its way through the past few years, but Hungary's administration doesn't enjoy the buffer of solid economic growth that PiS can hide behind. The government's anti-corruption credibility is now in shreds, it has failed to capitalize on EU funds, and the country's bureaucratic behemoth remains unmolested. Furthermore, foreign policy has been little short of a disaster.

It is time to deliver the coup de grace for this administration and announce early elections. PiS believes it should be in power; if it has the courage of its convictions, it should stand the test of fresh polls.

A snap election has several benefits. Voters now know much more about what the individual parties stand for and what they can expect from them in government. Despite the country's political instability economic growth has not faltered, so the usual negative economic effects of a general election should be minor. Parties could use new elections as a chance to wipe the slate clean and build an effective coalition, if no party emerges with an outright majority. That done, the new government could then get on with the business of running the country, without the distraction of having to constantly compromise in the face of wavering support from disingenuous partners. The other option is for PiS to continue stuttering along with its creaking coalition - this is an unappetizing prospect for all of Poland's parties and the country as a whole.

Tony Blair has done what his country and parliament asked of him; the Kaczyńskis should follow his lead and do the same. l

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