Trouble back at the ranch
Just after a couple of weeks' peace and quiet over Christmas and the New Year, we might have expected the festive goodwill within the governing coalition to continue for a little while longer yet. But no. Only days after politicians got back to Warsaw, a new row blew up, different to all the others in the past that have tended to be between the two ruling parties. This time it is Solidarity Election Action (AWS) itself that is responsible for a major crisis within its own government.
The immediate issue is a motion of no-confidence in Treasury Minister Emil Wasacz submitted to Parliament by no less than 74 AWS MPs. Although it was then claimed that some parliamentarians had signed the motion without knowing that it was going to be voted on, the breadth of signatures on the motion across the spectrum of the AWS club shows how deeply unpopular Wasacz is within his own party, albeit for different reasons. Some more nationally minded MPs see Wasacz as selling out Poland to foreign interests, and not doing enough to restore property to rightful owners, while other more liberally minded parliamentarians attacked Wasacz for what they perceived as mistaken privatization decisions over the last few months.
Once the leadership of the AWS club, in particular Solidarity leader Marian Krzaklewski, found out about the attempt to remove Wasacz, they made attempts to persuade various faction members to withdraw their signatures, and to get the proposers of the motion to withdraw it altogether. Yet a closer reading of parliamentary regulation revealed that neither was possible: once a motion is submitted to the parliamentary speaker, it has to be voted on by the entire Parliament, as will happen within the next few weeks. In those conditions, the prospects of Wasacz's survival do not look good. In such a vote, the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and Polish Peasants Party (PSL) will leap at the opportunity to embarrass the government, as will the dozen or so right-wing parliamentarians outside of AWS. Despite the fact that it is probable that the AWS parliamentary club will declare a whip for the vote, there are enough rebels in AWS ranks to push the combined vote against Wasacz over the required majority.
A loss of such a vote indeed, the fact that such a vote can even have come to pass will be a severe embarrassment for both Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, and Krzaklewski, for it will show that not even the two most senior leaders of AWS are capable of controlling a swathe of their own parliamentarians, in circumstances that will even further entrench in the public mind the view that AWS remains a disorganized collection of politicians. But in reality the very fact that such a motion has been drawn up reflects an even deeper crisis within AWS itself.
As Parliament passes the half-way mark, and politicians realize that elections will be held "next year," the fragility of power has become all too evident. As long as AWS seemed securely in place, feeding off the success of parliamentary victory in 1997, then for so long the disparate collection of parties and grouplets within it could hold together. Now, with defeat in coming presidential and parliamentary elections looking increasingly probable, some AWS politicians have decided that the only way to survive is to start making their mark in opposition to AWS ministers, rather than supporting them on board what appears to be a sinking ship. That is one reason why both Buzek and Krzaklewski are so determined to stop the Wasacz vote: they know that if successful, it will be the signal for further disparate factions in AWS to pick off successive ministers, leaving the two leaders as only passive observers of a gradual disintegration of discipline.
The above scenario could have been avoided had both Buzek and Krzaklewski shown more determined leadership over the last two years within both AWS and government. Both faced a similar dilemma: to lead from the front, at the expense of losing supporters on the margins, or to play the role of arbiters and coordinators, focusing on complicated tactics to satisfy all possible factions within party and government. For Buzek, that would have meant sacking or reshuffling unpopular ministers before they became targets for attack; and for Krzaklewski, that would have meant moving forward quickly to forge a single party from AWS, instead of leaving it as a loose coalition of bickering politicians. In an attempt to buy off short-term stability, both Buzek and Krzaklewski chose the easier options. Now, the inefficiencies which that choice produced have provoked a vicious circle of declining popularity at large and increasing dissent in the ranks, which are becoming increasingly difficult to control.
The fate of the motion to dismiss Wasacz is probably the last opportunity to reverse this circle of decline. If it passes, and as a result Wasacz is forced to resign, expect it to be the final nail in the coffin of the authority within AWS of both Buzek and Krzaklewski.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
