You ain't seen nothin' yet
Kind of quiet, isn't it? Almost two weeks have gone by without any major public rows within the ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) party and the government. Of course, there's a very simple reason: most Polish politicians have taken a three-week break for Italian and yes Austrian ski slopes, only a month after they came back from their previous two-week break over Christmas. But already, there are rumblings of what awaits us when AWS MPs, reinvigorated by their R&R, come back to do some serious plotting and backstabbing.
First to be attacked is likely to be the hapless Treasury Minister Emil Wasacz, who, just when he thought he was safe, will face the indignity of a scheme by current chairman of the parliamentary Privatization Committee, Tomasz Wojcik, to haul him before the State Tribunal on charges of privatization irregularities. The State Tribunal is a constitutional body charged with bringing to book politicians and senior governmental officials for crimes committed in office, and although rarely if ever has anybody been successfully prosecuted, this Polish version of impeachment much like all Polish legal cases drags on interminably and should probably provide Wasacz with enough diversion for the rest of the parliamentary term at least. Marian Krzaklewski, AWS leader, is understood to be desperate to stop Wojcik, but even if Wojcik fails in his maneuver, it will once again confirm to voters that AWS is fatally divided.
During the break, politicians in the ruling party have been quietly lining up forces for the showdown within AWS that will occur at the end of the month in Mierki, a former communist pleasure resort in the Mazurian lake district, where the AWS parliamentary club intends to hole itself up for a weekend to determine key political moves for the next few months. First up will be the question of reform of the parliamentary club itself, which until now has been a largely moribund body, run by fiat by Krzaklewski and his kitchen cabinet. Party leaders within AWS are pushing for a more slimmed down leadership structure, with themselves as key figures and with real decision-making powers. Krzaklewski will probably agree to such a reform, but at a price: he will demand that the reformed parliamentary club limit itself purely to decisions relating to legislation, not high politics.
Second on the agenda will be the question of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. Senior AWS politicians, such as Aleksander Hall, are now openly calling for his removal, but as time goes by, and the less disciplined AWS becomes, the less likely it is that such a dangerous constitutional maneuver could succeed in Parliament. But nonetheless, expect more internal dissent against Buzek to emerge. Watch also for the implications of the final issue to be decided within AWS: namely, the candidacy of Krzaklewski for president. Krzaklewski has boxed himself into a disastrous dilemma of whether to run, and face near-certain defeat at the hands of incumbent President Aleksander Kwasniewski, or to pull back and nominate a different man as AWS candidate and risk the emergence of an alternative figure of authority from the right. Political exigencies mean that this will be one decision Krzaklewski will not be able to duck, and either choice may yet shift the balance of power within AWS.
Ultimately, what is at stake is who controls AWS after the elections. The party leaders fear there may be an attempt to completely eliminate them from AWS coalition election lists, and ensure that a future AWS parliamentary club will be made up only of Krzaklewski loyalists. Hence, many of them are hoping that Krzaklewski will be weakened as a result of whatever he chooses to do over the presidency, leaving his rivals in a better position to take charge of AWS after 2001. Yet at the same time there is an increasing determination should such a strategy fail to ditch the AWS banner after a potentially disastrous general election defeat, and play long. The idea is to spend the next 2001-2005 parliamentary term in opposition attacking both the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), as well as the mistakes of the AWS coalition in the 1997-2001 term, and build up for a "double-whammy" against the left in 2005, which will see simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections.
It seems fantastic that already Poland's politicians are planning their moves in 2005. But it is a measure of the crisis in Poland's right that there is an increasing division between those who can think only of maneuverings in the next five weeks, and those who are jumping ahead five years. The four years after 2001 are looming as a giant black hole from which both sides know that only the fittest and leanest will emerge, and the only question remains as to who that will be.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director @cec.com.pl
