A week is a long time in Polish politics

It was the old British prime minister, Harold Wilson, who said ‘A week is a long time in politics’: he should have come to Poland.

It’s all been going off here.

Police raided the house of ex-construction minister in the previous SLD government, Barbara Blida, investigating allegations she had been involved in corruption when allocating building contracts. Blida went to the toilet, accompanied by a female police officer, when, somehow, she put a hand in a drawer in the bathroom, pulled out a gun and shot herself dead through the chest.

What had she been up to as minister of construction in that sleaze ridden, ex-communist government? How was she allowed to get hold of a gun when under police supervision? What was a gun doing in her bathroom in the first place?

Jurek and church

Only a few days ago, Marek Jurek announced, with a flourish, that he was resigning the powerful position of Speaker of Parliament, leaving the government and leaving the ruling Law and Justice party (see previous post)to set up his own party – the Polish Right.

Quite apart from the fact that Jurek’s Polish Right would not be ‘Right’ at all – it would be much the same as the current government: a conservative leftish party (a marriage made in hell) – we already have one of those nationalist-conservative grouping: the barmy League of Polish Families.

So the ‘right’ looked set to split and split again, and so split the ‘right’ vote in the process.

But now the talk is of Jurek rejoining Law and Justice. Maybe. But maybe not.

A week is a long time in the politics of Marek Jurek. But what has changed his mind and tempted him back with his old mates?

Cue – stage right – the entry of the good old Polish Catholic Church, which has been trying to mediate between Jurek and the Kaczynski government. Why? Because the church does not want further splintering of the rightwing (read ‘conservative-left) in Poland in case the real Left or secular liberals get in power.

That the Church thinks it has a role in Polish politics is a scandal. If Jurek does come back then I think quite a few Poles will vote in a way that will make the cardinals cry into their pulpits.

How to become exempt from lustration in Poland?

Become a Catholic.

I have had to go through the ‘auto-lustration’ process. Everyone who works in the media here, and born before 1972, has to sign a form saying that he, ''Is not aware or conscious of the fact that he worked for the Polish communist secret service.’

Me, a root vegetable from south London, a Polish communist spy?

I spent most of the 1980s half conscious in some university student bar near the Elephant and Castle.. So how would I know if, unaware to myself, the conscious half of my brain had been spying for the Polish communists, or any other communists, for that matter?

I signed this nonsense. I would have gotten in trouble, and my boss would have gotten in bigger trouble, if I had not. So I did.

But it appears that employees of anything to do with the Polish Catholic Church are exempt from the lustration process, because of the Concordat signed between the Vatican and the Polish state.

So the government thinks that I am a greater potential threat to Poland than some Polish Catholic university lecturer.

A week is not just a long time in Polish politics, it's a very weird week, as well.

Marek Jurek PiS-ed off

Following a failed attempt to change the Constitution regarding abortion and euthanasia, leading Law and Justice (PiS) politician Marek Jurek throws a pissy fit and resigns from the party.

A bewildering few days last week in the Sejm, the Polish parliament, has led to the inevitable: Polish political parties splitting into factions.

A group of politicians from the ultra conservative League of Polish Families, backed by some of the more ultra-conservative members of the ruling Law and Justice party, tried to get amendments put into the Polish Constitution that would prevent a women from having an abortion, no matter what the circumstances. This included if the pregnancy was the result of rape.

The government – including President Lech Kaczynski and his prime minister brother Jaroslaw, favoured the current abortion law, which is already one of the most restrictive in Europe.

In an attempt to get a compromise, the Kaczynskis put forward an amendment of their own saying that the status quo would be put into the Constitution and no matter what outside law was put in place – meaning any meddling from Brussels or international Human Rights Courts – abortion would always be illegal in Poland accept in the cases of rape, or when the health of the mother was seriously compromised, etc…

There were other amendments put forward as well, but all of them failed.

The Speaker of Parliament, top PiS member Marek Jurek, supported the amendments on further restrictions on abortion and has subsequently resigned the speaker’s chair, and now has resigned from Law and Justice altogether.

The amount of members from Law and Justice to vote against the Kaczynski’s is unclear for various reasons, but Marek Jurek was joined by up to 59 to 70 others.

With Jurek resigning from PiS this has opened up a serious rift within the ruling party.

And so it was always thus…

The abortion votes and subsequent resignations show what an unstable thing is the Polish political party.

In Britain we have had, for over 100 years, two or three parties that (used to have) deep roots in British society. The Labour Party was a creation of the trade unions and was supported by all sorts of other institutions that were part of the fabric of British society. Same with the Conservative Party.

But not so in Poland. All the current parties are only a few years old – apart, ironically from the ex-communist SLD – which was imposed on Poles after WW II.

So, bereft of any base in society, splits and factions are a regular feature of Polish political life.

The ultra conservatives are now breaking away from Law and Justice.

The same tensions can be seen in the main opposition party, Civic Platform – with factions centered around either the leader, Donald Tusk, or his more conservative number two, Jan Rokita.

Recently, deep splits opened up in another coalition party, the agrarian populist Self Defense, under the leadership of political bully boy, and only partially reconstructed Stalinist, Andrzej Zbigniew Lepper.

But this splitting tendency has been evident in Polish politics ever since the fall of communism.

It even happened to the Beer Drinkers Party

After the Round Table talks of 1989, Poland suddenly became awash with political parties. One of those was the Beer Drinkers Party, Polska Partia Przyjaciół Piwa, under the leadership of bearded comedian, Janusz Rewiński.

But after the elections in 1991, the Beer party started the inevitable political squabbling that inflicts all parties here. Eventually the party split in two: the Big Drinkers and the Little Drinkers.

Maybe the split was over how much beer we should actually drink?

So if party splits are the iron law of Polish post-communist politics, then what does the future hold?

Well, Law and Justice could split in two: becoming the Law Party and the Justice Party.

Civic Platform would become the Civic Party and the Platform Party (in favour of better platforms at train stations).

And Lepper’s party – Self Defense – would split into the Defense Party and the Self Party (the latter lead by Lepper, naturally). Lepper would then create a splinter group called the Self-ish Party.

Whatever: the whole sorry mess the ‘right to life’ amendment debacle in parliament last week has demonstrated, yet again, that Poland will never have a stable political life, because all the political parties here, afloat from any roots in Polish society, are about as stable as a highly combustible gas.

Bush asked to come to Poland

The Polish government must be desperate.

So contentious is the planting of US anti-missile systems in Poland that the government has asked George W. Bush to come to Warsaw in the summer and sell the idea to the electorate.

That Bush can be seen in the eyes of the Kaczynski’s as an asset in winning any battles shows that they are a little detached from political reality.

But no matter – the government has its own way to hold together its support in the country – hounding out a communists and ‘collaborators’ left in the secret services, media etc, always does the trick.

While a majority of Poles are against the idea of having an anti-missile base here, around 60% support the government’s attempt to finish off the Solidarity revolution by kicking the old guard out of the public services.

So at a time when the Kaczynski administration is fraying at the edges, with bits falling off it from resignations, etc, and when no real progress is being made at making the public services more cost efficient for the poor bastards that have to pay for it, a bit of commie bashing always comes in useful.

But will Bush come in useful as an anti-missile base traveling salesman? That’s…er...a tricky one…

More?
According To Polish Prime Minister Democracy Is Not Functioning In Full, Polish Outlook

The mysterious resignation of Ludwik Dorn

The now ex-minister of the interior takes everyone by surprise.

With a cabinet re-shuffle imminent, Minister of the Interior, sociologist (and writer of children’s books!) Ludwik Dorn decided to resign.

The reason? “Disagreement on certain issue,” with Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Journalists, disorientated by yet another resignation only a couple of days aft, resignationser Radek Sikorski resigned as defense minister - also citing ‘differences with the PM’ - grilled Dorn for what these ‘disagreements’ were over, but to no avail. Dorn was keeping his mouth shut...for now.

He is staying on as one of the government’s many vice-prime ministers, however.

Speculation on what’s going on here welcome.

Sikorski to leave government?

He always was a fish out of water.

It’s been reported this morning that Defense Minister Radek Sikorski will be leaving his post as Defense Minister in the Polish government. The rumour is that there is conflict with the vice defense minister Antoni Macierewicz.

There is also talk within government ranks that he is ‘acting as a foreign minister within the defense department. If that is true then to wonder: the present foreign secretary, Anna Fotyga is completely useless.

There is also another weird rumour that the government will be ‘looking into the immigration history of Sikorski’. Don’t know what that means, but Sikorski was an exile during the 1980s in the UK and US.

So it appears that the government will be losing the only internationally respected politician it has. But it’s good for Sikorski – he always was a little too good to be in the same company as Law and Justice.