You mean he's a socialist?
One of the burning questions of Polish politics seemed to be answered last week. As the negotiations to form a new government progressed into their second week, it was clear that agreement had all but been reached between the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and Peasants Party (PSL) on the formation of a governing coalition.
That meant that after much to-ing and fro-ing, SLD leader Leszek Miller had made his choice: faced with the option of either forming a free-market reformist government together with the liberal Civic Platform (PO) movement, or a socialist-leaning administration with the peasants, he has chosen the latter. Barring last-minute surprises, that means Poland for the next four years will be governed by a leftist-agrarian coalition, in a replay of the 1993-1997 government.
That will ring warning bells straight away in the minds of those who are aware of the challenges facing the country in the next few months and years. In the short term, there is a burning need to face up to the potential economic crisis, which threatens the country. Economist after economist has been warning of the potentially massive internal budget deficit that could provoke a currency meltdown next year, unless the country's bloated welfare system is not reformed, and a $20 billion deficit not reduced.
In external affairs, the key challenge for Poland is membership in the European Union (EU) by 2004, with tough negotiations ahead on matters of agricultural policy and land sales. The question now arises how these strategic challenges will be met with an SLD-PSL government at the helm. For a time, it seemed that Miller would prefer to be at the head of a minority administration with the support of the PO, or even in a coalition with the latter. That was certainly the hope of Polish businessmen, who appealed last week for such a government, and it was the dream ticket in the eyes of Western embassies and foreign financial analysts. An SLD-PO coalition, it was argued, would push the SLD into the direction of financial reform and maintain pro-EU momentum.
To the PO's credit, they too were prepared to countenance a parliamentary maneuver that would have allowed for the installation of a minority SLD administration committed to reform, and it was with an open mind that they began their talks with the SLD. Very quickly, however, it became clear that Miller, and the SLD, had no real desire for such a pro-reform coalition.
Uncomfortable as it may be for many to accept, the SLD is a left-leaning social-democratic party, at best. It is implied in the name of the party, it was stated explicitly in their electoral program, and is openly argued by its leadership. It remains a mystery, therefore, why numerous observers and pundits have convinced themselves that the truth is otherwise. In terms of practical politics, moreover, it makes little difference if its leaders actually believe in socialism or not. Even if they did not, and were merely pragmatists ready to speak in terms of a philosophy they did not believe just to achieve power, it would still leave the SLD leadership prisoners of their own electorate, who now expect socialist promises to be delivered. The plain fact is that the SLD leadership remains distrustful of capitalism and free markets, and ultimately does believe that economic growth can be driven by state redistribution and interventionism, and that the goal of social policy is the progressive equalization of income distribution.
So it is hardly surprising that its negotiations with the PO were little more than shadow play, with both sides surely aware they were participating only in theater to assuage their consciences toward the throngs of Western financial analysts and diplomats who had been hoping for the impossible. It must have been some relief, therefore, for the SLD negotiating team to enter instead into the serious business of talks with a more familiar partner, the PSL. The long-standing relationships between the SLD and PSL leaderships, as well as their common impulse to tax and spend their way out of a recession, must have made for a much more congenial atmosphere than discussions about introducing a flat tax with the free-market ideologues of the PO.
Ultimately, however, the emerging SLD-PSL coalition speaks volumes about the SLD leader himself. Miller has done much to convince sundry Western observers that he is a closet liberal, affecting to be a social democrat only to win a tiresome election. Ever since that election, in which he just failed to squeak a majority in Parliament, Miller has indeed had every opportunity to direct the future course of the SLD and the country in a genuine reformist direction, simply by accepting the offer of the PO to support his government, if the latter were to pursue genuinely free-market and pro-European policies.
Yet he preferred the comfort of governing with those who are his true ideological and historical allies the PSL who have an indisputable record of public statements threatening to stop privatisation, tax foreign investors until the pips squeak, and resist EU accession requirements.
Doubtless we will now be witnesses to the familiar litany of excuses at any time when the new government proposes or introduces policies that damage the country's economy or international standing: it will, of course, all be the fault of the reactionary PSL, holding the closet reformist Miller hostage to their policies. If only they were not in government. Perhaps it would be more useful at that moment to turn one's gaze to Miller himself and ask why, when he had the opportunity, he made the choice he did.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl (mailto:director@cec.com.pl)
