Elections ahead

With Poland gearing up for -- count them -- three different votes this year (Parliamentary, Presidential, EU Constitution), probably all this fall, it's time to take a look at the political situation before the real campaigning begins. For an excellent summary, check out The Economist's last country report on Poland.



As regular WS readers know, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), a group of former communist party officials and socialists, has more or less self-destructed over several high-profile scandals and 2002-2003's economic stagnation that led to Prime Minister Leszek ("LEH-shek") Miller's resignation last year. After gaining 41% in 2001's Parliamentary elections, the party is now only holding together because it's still in power.



But just barely. Since Miller's resignation the day after Poland's entry into the EU last May, the SLD has effectively split in two, with Marek Borowski ("MA-rek" "bor-OV-ski") leading some of the unsullied members into a new party, named Polish Social-Democracy (SdPl). He failed however, to land some of the biggest names in the party -- such as President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, new Prime Minister Marek Belka, and Economy Minister Jerzy Hausner. These three are moderate when it comes to fiscal policy: Mr Hausner's plan to reform public finances was ambitious, and aimed to cut some zł. 54 ($17.8) billion -- mostly from bloated state pension funds.

And it now seems that yet another party, the Democratic (yes) Party (PD), is where they will land. This group has been founded by the leader of the Freedom Union (UW), Władysław Forsiniuk, and already looks to be SLD's successor on the left. It has a strong 6-12% (depending on the poll) level of support if the election were held today. They're attracting moderates: their gain has come at the cost of Citizen's Platform (PO -- the center-right majority in waiting), which now has only 22% support, down from 28%.


Hausner has already joined the party, and Belka is too, as of Saturday. When Hausner submitted his resignation from his dual-post as Deputy Prime Minister/Economy Minister two weeks ago (which Belka still hasn't rejected or accepted), he announced to the press: "This does not mean the end of my cooperation with Marek Belka." Belka has since said that on May 5, his work as PM will be officially at an end -- he will resign. Along with that, he will call for the dissolution of Parliament that day, paving the way for elections by June. However, it looks as if he doesn't have enough support for the proposal within his own party. SLD officials estimate that 20-30 of their delegates may defect and vote for dissolution, but even if that happened on May 5, the earliest elections could be held is late July. To avoid costing the state several million złoty, most parties will by then probably agree to have elections in September, as dictated in the constitution.

A pity. If elections fall in the autumn, it will probably only benefit Self-Defense (SO) and the League of Polish Families (LPR), two extremist parties, the former populist and the latter right-wing. Both are anti-EU, and both have gained up to 17% and 15% of the public's support in recent polls.

Citizen's Platform (PO) will surely win a plurality in the electoins -- the only question is by how much. 25% should be the line at which they're judged. More than that will be deemed a success, less -- a failure; A later election works against them. PO wants to institute a flat VAT (value added tax) and a flat income tax -- they're talking about 15%, but if they manage to pull it off, a more realistic outcome is probably 18-19%.


PO is led by a man named Jan Rokita. He is perhaps the least charasmatic, and most frustrating of the bunch. Stubborn, autocratic, and more conservative than most in his party, I'm not looking forward to having him as Prime Minister. Then again, he's much better than Andrzej Lepper ("AHND-jay") ("LEP-per"), leader of SO, or Roman Giertych ("GYER-tikh"), the LPR's man in charge.

That's our overview of the political situation as it stands now, and gives us some idea of what the Parliament will look like. Stay tuned -- next up WS will bring you the details on the Presidential election -- who's in, what their stance is, and what it means for Polish-American relations.