Vetoing the veto
By : Juliet D. Golden
The ill-fated enfranchisement bill will make the top of the country's political agenda once again this week with a parliamentary vote on whether to overturn President Aleksander Kwasniewski's September veto of the controversial law.
At the end of a stormy three and a half-hour joint session last week, members of the finance and treasury committees recommended that the Sejm overturn Kwasniewski's September veto of the bill in a 30-22 vote. While a vote on the recommendation could be placed on the Sejm's agenda as early as Wednesday, most analysts predicted that the presidential veto would be upheld.
Under constitutional rules, any move to overturn a presidential veto must receive a three-fifths parliamentary majority, something even the most diehard supporters of enfranchisement admit will most likely be out of reach.
"Qualitative and political analyses shows that a majority of three-fifths will be difficult to achieve," said Tomasz Wojcik, a Solidarity Election Action (AWS) deputy who shepherded the enfranchisement initiative through the Sejm and Senate earlier this summer.
Others in the business community agree. "I don't think the Sejm will be able to overturn the presidential veto," said Lech Pilawski, general director of the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (PKPP).
But while chances for success on the enfranchisement bill look slim, the final stand on the issue last week probably had more to do with presidential election politics than the cause itself, according to some observers.
In fighting to have state-owned apartments and farmland handed over to current users at no charge, proponents of the enfranchisement bill also appeared to be politicking for AWS presidential hopeful Marian Krzaklewski and against the incumbent Kwasniewski.
As testimony to enfranchisement's political symbolism and prominence in this presidential election, 10,000 supporters of the bill marched through Warsaw last week with Krzaklewski at the helm. In a religious mass that kicked off the rally, church officials also threw their support behind Krzaklewski's bid. "All of us must participate in these elections," Henryk Michalak, a Catholic priest, was reported as saying in Gazeta Wyborcza. "There are many handsome candidates, but we have to choose the one who loves God and country. I am going to vote for Krzaklewski."
The fiery meeting in the Sejm last week on enfranchisement also appeared to be geared toward winning votes. According to Wojcik, the lengthy session was broadcast live on ultra-conservative Catholic radio station Radio Maryja.
"A lot of AWS parliamentarians spoke directly into the radio's microphones," said Jan Wyrowinski, a Freedom Union (UW) deputy who sits on the Sejm's treasury committee. But Wyrowinski questions the efficacy of the move. "In my opinion, the influence of Radio Maryja is limited and not a means of enlarging electoral support," he said.
Viewed as a way to compensate citizens for the wrongs of the communist era, the universal enfranchisement act would make it possible for average citizens to acquire state assets free of charge. Since the bill's surprise passage by the Sejm in July, enfranchisement has been catapulted to the frontline of the presidential election campaign. Krzaklewski in particular appeared to pin his presidential hopes on the issue winning him a place in the run-off elections at the very least.
But some politicians think he overestimated enfranchisement's potency among voters. "I don't think it was a wise choice for him to use enfranchisement as the main element of his (election) program," Wyrowinski said.
