UW threatens to leave coalition
At press time Friday, Andrzej Herman, the newly appointed administrator of Warsaw's Gmina Centrum, was still in his office despite threats that the Freedom Union (UW) would leave the ruling coalition.
In response to Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek's decision to suspend the local governing council in Warsaw, Leszek Balcerowicz, finance minister and UW chairman, announced that his party would withdraw from the coalition with Solidarity Election Action (AWS). Balcerowicz said that by suspending the governing council of Warsaw's Gmina Centrum, the premier had attempted to abolish the authority of the capital's districts. UW's withdrawal was to be decided May 28 at the party's national council congress.
On May 17, Buzek dissolved Gmina Centrum's governing council and appointed Herman as administrator for the gmina on the advice of Antoni Pietkiewicz, head of the Mazowieckie province where Warsaw is located. (see WBJ May 22-28, 2000)
But according to Julia Pitera, a member of Transparency International and a deputy in Warsaw, one of the reasons for Buzek's decision might have been to put an end to bribery, which Pitera said affects all the administrative levels of local authorities.
"The scale of corruption in Poland is so extensive that in my opinion it's causing a serious threat to the state," she said.
Pitera added that now was the perfect moment to sacrifice a few politicians, "even those on the front pages," who are involved in corruption. "Let the UW withdraw from the government, but if it doesn't participate in a massive cleansing, it will be ruined when proof of corruption is revealed," she said. "There will be victims on both sides of the political scene, on the left and on the right."
Last month, the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and UW created a ruling coalition in Warsaw. In response to Buzek's decision to suspend the council and appoint Herman, Pawel Piskorski, the UW mayor of Warsaw, accused AWS of trying to keep a firm grip on the capital at all costs.
Immediately after his appointment, Herman declared that he would fight corruption at the local Warsaw level. But a few days later, despite an earlier promise, he would not hand over documents describing possible cases of corruption to the press. Instead, he sent them to the Interior Affairs Ministry (MSWiA). Pitera said this was a political decision determined by a serious conflict within the coalition in which the UW was defending the status quo in Warsaw.
Herman denied that his decision was dictated by politicians. "I handed (documents) over to Biernacki (the Minister of Interior Affairs) because I have no means to analyze them myself and I don't want to make groundless accusations," he said last Friday. He also said that most of the cases he reported to the minister refer to abuses of the public procurement bill.
On Friday, Buzek said he was ready to resign to convince the UW to stay and thereby save the ruling coalition. "People who break up the coalition now take responsibility for the future of Poland and its membership in the European Union," he said.
