8 August 2003
Parties
and party systems in Poland
Søren Riishøj, senior lecturist, Institute of Political Science,
University of South Jutland
This article attempts to shed
light on the rise and development of political parties and party systems in the
CEECs. It begins with outlining the main features of party and party system
development in Poland since 1989 seen in the context of different stages of
post-communism. The aim is to present a broad overview and to reach a better
understanding of the changes in parties and party systems in CEECs - and
especially in Poland. The debate on the role of Solidarity has been intense and
many-sided. Seen over the last 22 years Solidarity can be considered as a trade
union, a anti-communist liberation movement, a broad anti-communist movement
party, a cartel type party with governmental responsibilities and after the
2001 election as a party and trade union without representation in the Sejm. At
the 2001 national election AWS lost representation in the Sejmen. A variety of
explanations has been put forward. One of the major arguments in this article
is that explanations of the evolution of Solidarity has to be found on the
structural and institutional as well as on the policy level and, maybe most
significantly, on the actor-behavioural level due to the anarchic culture on
the Right.
1.1. The Solidarity movement
Since 1980 the Solidarity movement had been the leading force in the
polarisation of Polish politics and society (“we” versus “them”) based on
Catholic ideologies and anti-communist discourses. Pragmatic attitudes and
self-limitation has been mixed with en active resistance against suppressors
i.e. the communists, but the self-limitation and internalisation of limits faded
away soon after the demise of the old system.
The phenomenon Solidarity has been unique. Hardly any other trade union
in the world has been in government, at the same time constituting a political
party and an interest organisation. Furthermore, during its 21 years’ long
history Solidarity has constituted a social protest with a built-in
self-limitation, working as a trade union focusing on short-term economic
interests and as a catch-all movement in a society undergoing deep and fast
changes, starting as a trade union, a democratic movement and a force of
national independence. Solidarity can be considered as a political mass
movement, that took trade union shape. Over the last 22 years Solidarity on
shift has constituted a trade union, a political mass movement and a reflexive
movement (”pozycji refleksji”) representing an “anti-political third way”
thinking. Solidarity can also be considered as a peaceful resistant movement,
pressurizing for changes delineated by the intelligentsia. Finally Solidarity has
been a political party in the more classical sense, in some periods even the
party of government trying to change a socially, economically and culturally
backward and socially deeply divided Poland. In the late 1980s the old
trade union Solidarity speeded up the “chain reaction” ending with the fall of
the old system and the round table talks, the semi-free election in June 1989,
the formation of the first non-communist government, the economic shock-therapy
and the hybrid type political capitalism that followed as the immediate result
of the demise and implosion of state socialism.
Thus, at least four different “Solidarity's” have existed, the first
going back in 1980-81, the second constituting underground Solidarity, a third
in 1988-89 with Solidarity acting as an active participant in the round table
negotiations followed by “wars in the top”, and finally the fourth Solidarity
acting first as an opposition party under the post-communist government and
after the 1997 election as the party in power. A new fifth stage has followed
after the defeat at both the 2000 presidential and 2001 parliamentary election.
In
many of its aspects, from its working class base to the struggle to realize
greater control over their enterprises, Solidarity had features in common with
a socialist type movement in all but name. The dominant model underlying
Solidarity resembled the social-democratic. As noted by Solidarity’s leader
Marian Krzaklewski[1], Solidarity
has mostly acted ”against” (the old system) and in the fight against liberals
and post-communists it has called upon universal Christian values and
traditions back in Polish history.
Since 1980 we have to differentiate between
·
The trade
union Solidarity (”S”)
·
The party-coalition
Solidarity i.e. AWS, later AWSP, at the foundation in 1996 consisting of mere
than 30 different political groups.
·
The party
movement Solidarity (RS AWS)
Before 1989 the defence of the workers short-term interests was brought
in the background due to the argument that such a defence of workers interests
provided a fundamental change of the state socialist system. In stead,
extrication and blackmailing were striking. Concrete plans and strategies for
transforming Polish society were postponed until the final victory over the
“post-communists” (Morawski 1998:74).
Before
1989 the fight against the old system had been a zero-sum play, a “win-looser
game”, during which the disagreement was suppressed in the name of the
collective strength. The principle ”strength through unity” was reflected in
the territorial and regional structures of the movement. Furthermore, the
political declarations of Solidarity were kept in abstract and symbolic
formulations mostly including slogans about social justice, democracy, truth,
rule of law, human rights and national community.
In the 1990s Solidarity had to adapt itself to the new, post-crisis
situation, with the uncertainties typical of post-industrial societies and the
“extraordinary politics” of the first stage of post-communism. As pointed out
by Kzrysztof Kwasniewicz, in the
broader context of post-communism Polish experience was a unique and
exceptional, and not subject to linear-type regularities. Therefore, he argues,
the experience of Solidarity can be given a double reading: either in terms of
the regularities underlying its inception, development and mechanisms
(intelligible to the world), or in terms of the regularities in the history of
the struggle for independence and uprisings (intelligible to the Polish nation)
(Kwasniewicz, in Bäcker etc, 2001:172). According to Kwasniewicz, between the
two functions mentioned above no open contradictions could be found in the
years before 1989.
After
the demise of the old system Solidarity did not need to “hide itself” behind a
trade union facade. After 1989 the political fight (now against the
“post-communists”) remained an important part of Solidarity’s actions, but the
policy and programme formulation was disregarded. A de-freezing and
de-radicalisation took place, but only partly and mostly on policy-level, and
to a minor extent on the symbolic and discoursive level. Solidarity leaders
soon recognized that political enemies could be found also inside its own camp. In the first stage the political fight took
place inside Solidarity’s civic committees (”Komitety obywateski ”S”). Thus the
struggle was no longer only a fight against the ”post-communists” and the trade
union OPZZ, to a great extent it became a struggle between us.
The
first (semi) free election in 1989 was a referendum for or against the old system,
not a choice between different political programmes and visions. “Normal”
elections were impossible to conduct under the then prevailing extraordinary
politics and transition anomie. To a great extent personalities (“political
crafting”), not future directed policy, determined the policy-line and the
coalition-building.
During
the round table negotiations civic committees (”Komitet Obywatelski”, OKP) led
by Lech Walesa was established (in December 1988), including representatives
from cultural and scientific life and former dissidents. Under the umbrella of
OKP 15 sub-commissions were established concerning important socio-economic
questions and policy formulation. Furthermore, special comissions were formed
dealing with trade union pluralism, freedom of organisations and with political
and economic reforms. OKPs organisational structure reminded us of a
proto-party consisting of a shadow cabinet with broadly formulated political
programmes that should prepare the Solidarity movement to take over the
government responsibilities when possible and feasible.
The
first Solidarity parliamentary group consisted of nine different political
groups. Formally OKPs organisation worked independently from the trade union
Solidarity. OKP was organised around small groups of persons, mostly
intellectuals who planned to establish their own independent parties.
Before
the 1989 election Lech Walesa had paved the way for a political “systemic
shift” away from real socialism by proposing a government that also included
the two minor post-communist parties, ZSL and SD. That self-limiting strategy,
it was argued, would not provoke the leaders in Kreml and strengthen the
position of the hardliners inside the ruling party (PZPR). The problem about
the lack of administrative leaders from Solidarity side was ”solved” by
accepting that key ministries, such as the Ministries of Home Affairs and
Defence, so far could be handed over to the communists.
The
policy disagreements in the Solidarity movement were kept down before the first
semi-free election in summer 1989 and the first months of the rule of the
Mazowiecki government. However, according to a big part of the electorate, many
new Solidarity-leaders soon demonstrated a ”euphorical arrogance”. Most new
non-communist leaders expected that the Polish people without reservations
would accept radical changes in society –
based on the argument that such policy is ”good” and ”self-evident”.
However, the significance of political learning and the ”socialist mind” was
underestimated. Furthermore, old policy subjects such as workers’
self-government, workers’ councils, co-ownership, strikes and demonstrations,
all known from 1980-81, disappeared from the political agenda and was not even
discussed after the struggle against the old system had been won.
After
the formation of the first Solidarity-led government it soon became a hot
issue, whether Solidarity’s parliamentary group should support the new
Solidarity-led government or be the driving force in a reinforced and
uncompromising confrontation with the old system (”przyspieszenie”). During the
election campaign in 1990 Lech Walesa supported the demands of “speeding up”
based on the argument that the whole philosophy behind the round table
agreements should be abandoned. Furthermore, he supported Solidarity’s
privatisation scheme based on give away schemes in the shape of shares given to
the whole adult population. However, he still had to balance between the
different political groups inside the movement. On the one side an
authoritarian tendency could be observed characterised by the deep rooted and
historically based hate to communism, on the other side we find a more liberal
self-limiting line characterised by political tolerance, willingness to
compromises and more political openness and by pro-European values.
From
Solidarity and the OKPs new political parties were established, but most
parties had a short existence. The normal procedure was the creation of a
parliamentary group, later the creation of election committees with the aim to
secure Walesa's victory to the forth-coming presidential election. One example
was ”Solidarnosc Pracy” created on the basis of the OKP-faction called
”Solidarnos Pracy”. ”Solidarnosc Pracy” took part in the election in 1991 and
was also represented in the new parliament. The changes in the election law and
the new five percent threshold for parliamentary representation had as a result
that representatives from ”Solidarnosc Pracy” and reform-minded communists
joined the new party “Union of Work”
(UP) in order to regain seats in parliament.
NSZZ
Solidarnosc (“S”) year 2000
Approximately
1,1 mill. members, including 100,000 pensioners and rentists. Before the
congresses the local organisations sometimes reports on more members in order
to obtain more delegates.
The
structure of “S”: 37 regions and 16 branch secretariats, consisting of 90
kraj-sections. The biggest branches in “S” are: mining, energy, metal, health,
teachers and railways. The biggest regions in “S”: Slasko-Dabrowski, Mazowsze,
Malopolska, Dolny Slask, Gdansk.
The
daily work in “S” was led by a Komission (“Komisja Krajowa”) consisting of more
than 100 persons. The day-to-day problems are to be solved by a 15-person presidium
KK that meets once a week. Chairman of “S” is Marian Krzaklewski supported by
three vice-chairmen, Janus Sniadek, Józef Niemec and Jerzy Langer.
“S”
has been a member of three international trade union associations, The European
Confederation of Trade Unions, The International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions and The World Confederation of Work.
The
working members of ”S” pay a fee that corresponds to one percent of the wages.
60 pct. of the money paid remain in the local organisations, 25 go to the
regions, 10 pct. to KK and 5 pct. to strike funds.
Polityka no. 49 (2274), 2
December 2000:26.
Thus,
in my judgement, at the time of the June 1989 election Solidarity could be
considered as a broad movement party, i.e. a proto-party organized based on the
civic committees (OKP) and the Solidarity trade union, and as a negative
alliance without many concrete plans for the future. Moreover, Solidarity
signified an embryonic political party composed of many different factions,
i.e. a party in the minimal sense, however, with deep roots in the Polish
people and Polish history and culture.
As
noted above, before 1989 Solidarity mostly acted as a pragmatic and
self-limiting movement, and at the same time a movement for moral renewal of
society. Only a minority of parties and movements acting in opposition to the
(post)communists, e.g. the right-nationalistic KPN and the catholic ZChN, rejected
to take part in round table negotiations with the communist authorities and
acting on the political scene according to declared fundamentalistic catholic
values and slogans. After all, the ”We versus ”Them” attitudes, the division in
good and evil and the tendency to speak on behalf of the whole nation did not
give much room for moderate policy choices.
After
1989 it was difficult for Solidarity to keep the lead. The old ethos and the
foundation myth was distinctly downplayed after the victory over the old system
had been won and being in government. According to Edmund Wnuk Lipinski[2]
this trend can be explained primarily by structural
factors. After the victory over the old system Solidarity lost its classical
mobilizising role going back to 1980-1981. Solidarity gained the greatest
support on big state enterprises in the heavy industry, i.e. the “dinosauers”
from the time of planned economy. In the first stage of post-communism the
organisation of work was primarily considered as a political, not an economic
enterprise, in that way having an impact on the attitudes of workers to the parties
and political system as a whole. By many citizens, extrication and
output-articulation were still considered as the best ways of influencing the
political system. Engagement in the private sector was not only seen as a
strategy for establishing a market economy, but also as a political enterprise.
Mainly for that reason Solidarity criticized ”theft” of public ownership
through the nomenklatura privatisation. At the same time Solidarity tried to
block privatisation, if privatisation of state enterprises might lead to more
unemployment.
Due
to the structural factors the victims of the introduction of market economy
were those employed in the big state enterprises, i.e. the old strongholds of
the Solidarity trade union. So the revolution once again “ate its own
children”. Tension erupted between on the one side the historic foundation of
Solidarity, i.e. the fight against the old system, and on the other side those
interests, which had to be defended during the transition to market economy,
first of all full employment and better living standard. After the collapse of
the old system Solidarity became divided in several factions. Just after 1989
Solidarity was joined by several people who had not actively taken part in the
fight against the old system. Many from that group demanded abolition of the
“thick line” policy of Tadeusz Mazowiecki. As noted above, until then the
disagreements inside Solidarity had been artificially repressed in order to
keep alive the common fight against the old system (Morawski, 1998:178).
Thus
the character of a mass movement disappeared from the moment the communist
system collapsed. The economic recession and the social problems fundamentally
changed Solidarity’s position in society. Under the prevailing extraordinary
politics it was difficult to formulate consistent and well articulated policies
to the most pressing policy problems, also programmes for the future and links
to social interests in society were needed. The plans for the transition from
plan to market were vague and inconsistent. Most important was to bring the
communists in the defensive. As put by Voytek
Zubek[3],
at that time Solidarity indirectly supported the old communist view that the
(new) post-communist system is fundamentally ”healthy” and ”historically
progressive” and that ”the leaders (i.e. the Solidarity-leaders) always are
right”. In other words, Solidarity acted as if it was enough to “convince” its
opponents or push them (i.e. the postcommunists) in the defensive.
As
noted above, from the outset Solidarity was in need of educated and
professional people especially on meso level who could fill out the vacuum left
after the old nomenklatura, and in that way create a new and better
administrative apparatus. Should Solidarity come to power, the old nomenklatura
inevitably would maintain a considerable political influence because of the
administrative control. Also mechanisms for conflict solution in society in
general were missing. Because of weak interest groups dissatisfaction was often
expressed on the streets, i.e. through protest strikes and demonstrations,
sometimes in violent forms. The lack of clear political visions was politically
demobilising, evidence showed that under social and economic recession
political programmes and visions for the future are strongly needed. On the way
down in the “valley of tears” it was almost impossible to mobilise the voters
in support of the government and bring them new hope and inspiration.
In
short, the norms from 1980-81 did not fit with the construction of a new
functional democracy and market economy, neither inside Solidarity nor in
Poland as a whole. Furthermore, we can conclude that in the first stage the
goals for the future were too broadly formulated, mostly as abstract symbols
and discourses including demands of self-organisation and
"”spolecznienie" ”of the state, i.e. transition to a moral type
political economy. Lech Walesa’s demands of ”przyspieszenie”, i.e. speeding up
of the fight against the old system, were put forward, later “democratic
socialist ideology” was striking based on a participatory democracy and a moral
political economy.
In
the new social environment tensions erupted between the old abstract goals for
the future and the day-to-day politics. Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski rightly argues
that the market reforms and chock therapy introduced after 1989 weakened the
common interests inside the social groups which until then had supported
Solidarity, especially workers on big state enterprises, farmers and
state-employed in the education and health sector. In the fight to take care of
these groups’ demands and interests the Solidarity movement had to compete with
other interest groups and parties, e.g. OPZZ, SLD, PSL, KPN and the Works Union
(UP). To accomplish that aim some in Solidarity wanted to speed up transition
to market economy, almost at every cost. Opposite, other groups spoke about a
specific ”third way” for Poland based on catholic religious ethics and moral
economics. After the founding elections Solidarity failed to formulate
programmes constituting sustainable alternatives to Rakowski’s reforms.
No
clear answer was given to the question whether Solidarity (”NSZZ Solidarnosc”)
should primarily constitute a political movement or a trade union. Compared
with ”first Solidarity” after 1989 the second Solidarity became more
”exclusive”, acting in a more restrictive way refusing to cooperate with most
other political parties and movements. The second Solidarity mostly reminded
about a broad catch-all anti-communist movement. After 1989 more attention had
to be paid to the realisation of concrete policy goals. Values and interests
had to converge, if the plans to create a functional party identity and culture
should succeed. But on that point Solidarity was facing several problems.
As
said, the greatest support came from conservatively minded workers on the
biggest state enterprises, i.e. the “dinosaurs” from the Stalinist period.
Support has also been fairly high on big private enterprises, while the
influence has been low on the new minor private firms. Here the attitudes to
introduction of market economy were in general more positive among the workers.
Furthermore, resistance from employer side against the establishment of trade
unions has been strong on new small enterprises. In order to obtain more support and new members the trade union
Solidarity had to secure itself a better representation on new private
enterprises; if that did not happen, the number of trade union members might
fall to less than one million, i.e. less than half of the membership of the
“post-communist” OPZZ. The regional structures also had to be adapted to the
new administrative division consisting of 16 regions (“voivod’s”), however, for
institutional and historic reasons resistance against further regionalisation
was widespread in all sections of Solidarity.
In
the new parliament elected in 1993 Solidarity was not represented at all. According
to Mariusz Muskat (Bäcker etc,
2001:167) the fundamental error was the premature assumption of power in 1989.
The Union failed to recognize the importance of strategies dealing with the
most important problems in society. In addition, the economy was in a bad
shape, the links with the nation weakening and the old Solidarity ethos waning.
In
1993 Solidarity went on the barricades and put forward a vote of non-confidence
to Hanna Suchocka’s Solidarity-led government, later, after the defeat at the
1993 election, Solidarity rejected the ”godless” “post-communist” proposal for
a new constitution. Acting outside parliament Solidarity tried to regain the
lost influence by organizing strikes and demonstrations directed against the
“post-communist” government. Among the more spectacular initiatives we find the
collection of 500,000 subscriptions supporting Solidarity’s proposal for a new
constitution[4]. In the
special commission which had prepared the proposal for a new constitution also
representatives from the common secretariat of the centre-right groups could be
found. The 500,000 subscriptions gave Solidarity the right to be represented in
the constitutional commission set up by the parliament, but the aim to bring
its own proposal to a national referendum at the same time as the proposal from
the government failed because of resistance the constitutional proposal from
the two ruling parties SLD and PSL.
At
that time the prospects for establishing a common front against the
”post-communists” were not bright. The disagreement on the Right especially
concerned the role of trade unions on state and regional level, e.g. policy
related questions about privatisation and economic reforms. The trade union
Solidarity’s strong position on the Right were mostly due to the organisational
vacuum. No other political groups could act as a “unifier” (Knuzewski,
1998:157). After the election defeat in 1993 more cooperation and unification
was needed, because the victory of SLD and PSL at the 1993 election had
primarily been due to the split among right-wing parties on both actoral as
wells as policy level.
After
the 1997 election the trade union Solidarity again became represented in
parliament and government. The consequences for the style and the organisation
of AWS were far-reaching. Leading personalities from Solidarity were elected to
the parliament; some became ministers in the Buzek-government set up after the
election. Marian Krzaklewski was elected as the chairman for AWS’ parliamentary
group. Unfortunately, after the election victory the characteristics of
political movement disappeared.
From
the beginning, the position of Marian Krzaklewski has been stronger than the
one of Lech Walesa. Opposite his successor (Marian Krzaklewski), former
chairman Lech Walesa had to fight energetically to keep the post as chairman of
Solidarity. Under the Krzaklewski chairmanship and decisions took place
top-down according to well-prepared plans. Having taken over government
responsibilities Solidarity appealed to more ”responsibility” and
“self-limitation” among trade union members and had to defend itself against
critique of cooperating with the liberal and secular Freedom Union (UW).
The
trade union Solidarity year 2000-2001 was different from the broad social
movement in the 1980s. The catch-all character has been maintained, but at the
same time a movement towards a post-communist cartel party formation could
easily be observed. According to critics of Solidarity the congress in autumn
1998 was evident of the petrification and bureaucratisation process and
concentration of power to a narrow circle of the chairman (Krzaklewski)
focusing on the “technology of power”. The congress in 1998 took place shortly
after the victory over the ”post-communists”, for that reason the enthusiasm
among the delegates was great. Therefore Lech Walesa's critical remarks
directed against the new government were not accepted by a majority of the
delegates at the congress.
Trade
union Solidaritys situation had changed before the 1999 congress. The fact that the 1999 congress took place at the
time when the support of AWS and the government was low gave rise to sharp a
critique against the policy of the AWS-UW government, e.g. concerning
privatisations, tax policy and postponement of laws about introduction of 40
hours working week with Saturday as work free day. Nonetheless, speaking to the
1999 congress former president Lech Walesa kept a surprisingly low profile.
However, his proposal to let the first round of the forthcoming presidential
election constitute an American type primary election with himself as one of
the candidates was not accepted by the delegates. With the negative experience
from the presidential election in 1995 in mind, the majority of the delegates
insisted that the political right should be presented by one common candidate
in order to bring that new candidate in the strongest possible position in the
struggle against the post-communist candidate, the then popular acting
president Aleksander Kwasniewski.
This
main focus in this section will be on the formation, stabilization and demise
of the electoral alliance AWS. The
initiative to establish the election alliance AWS has to be seen in the context
of the defeat at the 1993 election and the subsequent presidential election in
1995. At the presidential election 1995 the right wing parties were heavily
divided, thereby contributing to the ”post-communist” Aleksander Kwasniewski's
victory at the presidential election. In the months leading up to the presidential
election in 1995 Solidarity (”NZZZ ”Solidarnosc””) supported Lech Walesa.
However, while other right wing groups took the decision to support candidates
appointed by their own political groups PC (”Porozumienie Centrum”) decided to
support Lech Kaczynski, ROP Jan Olszewski and ZChN Hanna Gronkiewicz-Walz.
Inside Solidarity some supported by Zbigniew Wrzodak and thereby broke the
party line and supported Jan Olszewski at the presidential election. Thus,
without a greater unification on the Right the “power monopoly” of the
post-communist could not be broken.
22
different parties and organizations subscribed the declaration of the creation
of Election Action Solidarnosc (AWS), at the 1997 election AWS was composed of
no less than 38 different parties and organisations. As noted earlier, AWS can
be considered as a tactical and negative alliance, first an embryonic, later a
proto-political party with trade union Solidarity as the organisational core.
During the election campaign the attempt to mobilise the old Solidarity ethos
succeeded to a great extent, and most important, the waste of votes was
substantially reduced. At the 1993 election those groups, which later formed
AWS, obtained 29 pct. of the votes, only 4 pct. less than at the 1997 election,
but at the 1997 election the share of votes was enough for the Right to obtain
the majority in parliament. As ROP lost votes to AWS the swing among the
electorate as a whole to the Right was rather modest.
Some
parties still worked outside the election alliance AWS. The liberal Freedom
Union (UW) constituted the social liberal parts of the old Solidarity movement
and The Works Union (UP), the centre-left orientated part of the old
Solidarity, was also supported by reform-minded communists. Nevertheless, at
the 1997 election AWS became the greatest single party with support from about
one third of the electorate, more than predicted in the opinion polls before
the election which showed an almost “dead heat” between Left and Right.
Summarizing,
we can say that from the outset AWS can be considered as a broad right wing
negative election alliance, with strong elements of anti-politics, without the
old “self-limitation” and with very close links to the president (Walesa) and
with strong support from the army and the church.
From
the outset AWS’ different political groups and ”legs” watched zealously over
their own identity. Several acted as veto-groups
trying to obstruct even already adopted decisions and prevent passage of new
laws. The prospects to form one united right wing party with a high
institutionalisation and a common party culture were moderate indeed. Plans
circulating in Spring 1995 to create an ”independent trade union party” – only
based on the trade union Solidarity - were impossible to carry out. The
experience from the 1993 election, where the trade union Solidarity lost all
seats in parliament, was frightening. The right wing parties were simply
”doomed to cooperate”.
The trade union Solidarity became AWS’ organisational
nucleus and Marian Krzaklewski reamined chairman of the trade union until
October 2002. Tactical considerations, not ideological unity, were most
striking. The many political groups on the right could easily agree on the
anti-communist orientation and the aim to remove ”post-communists” from power,
i.e. behaving like a negative alliance. Many inside the AWS expressed the
opinion that the round table decisions in 1989 gave the ”post-communists” too
much influence. Also the support to demands put forward from the church was
striking, e.g. in the questions concerning abortion and religious instruction.
The close links to the church separated Solidarity not only from the
”post-communists”, but also from some of
the “normal” coalition partners, e.g. liberals groups and moderates
inside the Freedom Union (UW).
The
formation of AWS can be considered as an attempt to institutionalize the trade
union Solidarity’s control over the right spectre of the political scene.
Krzaklewski's proposal that all existing parties inside AWS should dissolve
themselves and after that constitute a unified political party, did not obtain
the sufficient support. If such plans had been carried out, some of AWS’ later
organisational problems might have been avoided. From the beginning AWS was
heavily divided politically and institutionally. Several right wing groups had
tried to obtain parliamentary representation at the 1993 election, but in vain.
These parties did not accept to loosing their identity. The support for AWS was
tactical, not value, policy or programmatically based. For that reason
disagreement on the actor level became striking. AWS can best be considered as
a negative political alliance, created with the explicit goal to join forces
against the ”post-communists” and limit the waste of votes at elections,
however, without a common political platform and a common vision for the future
and without the sufficient cohesion and loyalty inside leadership of the
election alliance.
As
regards the institutionalisation, AWS was almost a copy of the ”post-communist”
SLD, at least formally. The Republic of Poland’s Social democratic Party (SdRP)
constituted the organisational kernel in SLD, just as the trade union
Solidarity did in AWS. At the time of the creation of AWS the trade union
Solidarity had 1.5 mill members, a figure no other right wing party or
organisation was able to match up to. All other attempts to build up a common
front on the Right directed against the “post-communists” and president
Aleksander Kwasniewski had failed. As a result of that the trade union
Solidarity gained a strong position inside AWS, however, mostly because of the
lack of sustainable alternatives.
At
the foundation the three main decision centres were
·
The trade union Solidarity’s leadership, i.e.
the ”Komisja Krajowa” and the ”Rada Krajowa”
·
AWS’ political leadership, the coordination
group
·
AWS’ representation in parliament
In
the National Council (”Rada Krajowa”) the votes were divided equally between
the trade union Solidarity and the other groups, and the daily work was
conducted by a coordinating group (”Zespol Koordynacyjny”). In addition, the
principle about parity between the trade union Solidarity and the 30 other
groups was applied. The day to day leadership was conducted primarily by the
chairman of the National Council. The chairman of the AWS National council was
the trade union Solidarity’s leader, i.e. Marian Krzaklewski, thereby
reflecting the trade union’s strong position. Marian Krzaklewski was at the
same time the chairman of AWS parliamentary group and the trade union
Solidarity. The trade union had the decisive word when candidates for election
in 1997 were chosen. The strong
position of the trade union could be upheld until the election in 1997.
However, the defeat of Krzaklewski at the presidential election in October 2000
changed the situation. The danger of more organisational decentralisation was
obvious; the likely outcome was af more decentralisation was an increased split
inside the alliance and too slow decision-making procedures. Marian Krzakleswki
remained chairman for the trade union Solidarity until mid 2002, when he lost a
contested election.
After
the electoral victory in 1997 several new decision making procedures were
introduced. In spite of that AWS remained a faction divided party. The
anarchistic political culture on the right spectre of the political scene was
impossible to change from the one day to the other. The experience from the
time of Hanna Suchocka’s Solidarity led government showed that the split within the right wing camp might become
even greater than that between government and opposition.
Former
president Lech Walesa supported the foundation of AWS but he kept his hands
away from the day-to-day politics. Later he created his own party, The Republic
of Poland’s Republican Party and put himself forward as candidate at the 2000
presidential election. The former president would not be able to win that
election, most opinion polls only gave him few percent of the votes[5].
He was, however, still able to destabilize the political scene. Because of the
low electoral support AWS did not dare to take an open confrontation with
former president Lech Walesa and his new Christian party.
On
the ideological and programme level AWS covered a wide spectrum, unfortunately
too wide. Most political declarations were vague, abstract, Christian,
non-committal, almost a-political. The political declarations spoke about
”authentical” decentralization, de-communisation, construction of a marked
economy with a “built-in” dialogue between the employers and the employed, a
family friendly tax system and voucher-based privatization-schemes with
syndicalistic and social characteristics.
Summarizing,
from the outset AWS was an embodiment of a vision of the future Polish society,
expressing a striving towards more justice and honesty in society, even the
wish of revenge. This gave rise to a distinctly negative type political
alliance, directed against the ”post-communists”, composed of several different
ideological trends and different political groups aiming to return to the
political scene after the humiliating defeat to the post-communists at the
election in 1993.
From
the beginning AWS contained different trends:
·
A Christian National (”narodowo-katolickie”)
·
A conservative liberal
(”konserwatywno-liberalne”)
·
A leg attached to the trade union Solidarity
(”zwiazkowe”)
The
party organisation of AWS named RS AWS (see section 2.8.) constituted the
Christian-democratic, the party ZChN
the Christian-national and SKL the liberal-conservative policy line.
From
the beginning the future organisation was heavily debated. Aleksander Hall argued that AWS’ organisational structure was at
the same time odd and amorphous, because AWS was composed of so different and
”fictitious” organisations. The result was several attempts to centralise
decision-making. The close cooperation between workers and intellectuals that
in the 1980s had given Solidarity political strength, ceased to exist both
inside the trade union Solidarity and AWS. Most intellectuals from the
Solidarity movement joined the liberal Democratic Union (UD), the later Freedom
Union (UW).
At
the beginning it was difficult to say, whether AWS could be organisationally
reshaped and after that constitute a close-knit, functional and disciplined
political party. However, evidence showed that this was unlikely to happen. In
so broad a movement as AWS it was also important to determine the political
influence of the different political groups and to single out the political
core (”nurt”), i.e. the main decision center. After the withdrawal of KPN and
Radio Maryja the fundamentalist conservative-traditionalist faction became
weaker. Most decisions could only be taken after protracted negotiations. Furthermore,
they were mostly taken according to the principle about ”the higher (in the
organization), the more politics”. Not all decisions were accepted and
implemented on the local level and inside each political group and “leg”. The
decision making procedures were top-down but, as already noted, this did not
mean that AWS constituted a homogeneous and functional party federation.
The
political rhetorique was expressively anti-communist. More and more AWS
appeared as an identity party without consistent political programmes and
sufficient institutionalisation aiming to come to power as fast as possible.
The mobilisation of the old Solidarity-ideals was re-activated at the 1997
election. The election campaigns were moral-ideologically marked with strong elements
of symbolic politics. The voters were simply promised more honesty in politics.
Resistance against abortion has repeatedly been put forward, also demands of
more financial support for families, and an approval of the concordat with the
church as quickly as possible. Also demands about stricter ”decommunization”
(”dekomunizacji”) including a purge of collaborators from the old system
represented.
Thus
AWS concentrated its efforts on three policy levels: the break with the
communist past, the creation of a new and ”healthy” (”zdrowy”) state separating
the state from the economy and supported by the introduction of profound
political, social and economic reforms. Themes like appointments of new people
to important posts in society, abortion, decommunization, the concordat with
the church, privatisation and a new constitution were all placed high on the
political agenda. Accordingly the old ”we versus them” distinction was still
given a high priority. Solidarity put forward its own proposal during the discussions
about the new constitution, reflecting classical religious and “syndicalistic”
values. A revision of the constitution, however, was not a part of the
political agreement between AWS and Freedom Union (UW), leading to the common
government after the 1997 election
Taking
in consideration the big social and economic problems in society too little
attention was paid to social policy issues. Moving to more ordinary politics,
to dissociate oneself from the (”post-) communists” was no guarantee of
electoral success. Should Solidarity survive in the shape of a functional
political party federation, more “down-to-earth” political questions had to be
taken up. The majority of the electorate asked for a policy-orientated line
with clear marking on single issues appealing to the “average voter”
emphasizing subjects such as the ways of collective bargaining, working
conditions, employment service, social assistance, legal support to the members
and influence on restructuration of enterprises. For most Poles the years
before 1989 belonged to the past. Therefore, in the long run Solidarity could
not survive only on the foundation myth, the memories and feelings going back
to the fight against the old system. Nonetheless, the old “We-Them” discourses
from the 1980’s were never “de-freezed”, but the presidential election 2000
showed that the old anti-communist political slogans from the 1980s only
appealed to a small part of the electorate, between 10 and 15 pct. of the
electorate according to opinion polls. Therefore, the lack of de-freezing of
the old “we-them” discourse was most beneficial to the Left, especially SLD.
The
attitudes to the communist past also divided the right wing camp as a whole.
Different opinions existed on how severely former communist and agents of the
old system should be treated by the authorities. Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s slogan
about drawing a ”thick line” (between the past and present) was met with much
greater support in the Freedom Union (UW) than in AWS. Only few in AWS shared
the opinion that “reckoning with the
past” should be structural, and not based on the demand of revenge. The “soft
line” was expressed e.g. in the Polish daily ”Gazeta Wyborcza” and by the
editor-in-chief Adam Michnik.
On
the ideological level AWS expressed a return to the polarised historical
division of Polish society, as put by Michal
Wenzel, AWS at the same time expressed ”a return with considerable
differences”[6]. The values,
on which Solidarity was created, were not those championed in the late 1990s.
Neither in the shape of a trade union nor a political party Solidarity
reflected the consensus seeking combating Solidarity 20 years back. The old
distinction, “We versus Them” and civil society against totalitarianism, the
lack of ability to go beyond culture and history, undermined not only the trade
union Solidarity, but also the election alliance AWS in the struggle to
identify new post-communist conflicts and alternative futures.
Many
issues were policy-related. Thus the
health reform, introduced by the AWS-UW government, was badly introduced and
implemented. The citizens were not adequately informed about the consequences
of the reform, e.g. which parts of health services that would be cut down after
introduction of the reform. Furthermore, no answer was given on question, who
would win and who loose because of the reform. As a consequence, no suitable
analysis of the consequences of the reform for different social groups was
carried through. According to most public opinion polls a big majority of the
Polish people has shared the opinion that the health reform taken as a whole
constituted a big step backwards.
This
suggests that the development of AWS confirmes the hypothesis that broadly
based negative election alliances are hardly able to transform themselves into
homogeneous and functional party-federations. Only a well- developed party
culture and a sufficient party institutionalisation and loyalty on the actor
level can keep a ”party” alliance together and provide the party with an
”immune defence” in case of a political set-back. Both characteristics were
absent also in the case of AWS. This implied that the risk of new splits on the
Right existed ever since the foundation of AWS in 1996.
As
noticed above, according to the original plans the federalization of AWS should
ensure that AWS could express broad appeals. In order to speed up that process
AWS’ member organisation, the Social Movement-Solidarity Electoral
Action ( ”Ruch Spoleczny AWS” (”RS AWS”)), was established on 8 January
1997. However, RS AWS had a difficult start. The first congress was postponed
due to the lack of agreement about AWS’ institutional structure. From the
beginning it was unclear whether RS AWS should be just an extension of the
trade union Solidarity or alternately an independent policy-creating unity
inside the AWS. Formally RS AWS declared itself ”independent”, but the
political practice became different. Thus, in the statutes of RS AWS the
cooperation with NSZZ Solidarnosc, i.e. the trade union Solidarity, was mentioned.
It was no easy task to reach the optimal formula and the necessary compromises
between so many different opinions and institutional concepts.
Some problems were of institutional, to a large extent due to the low number of party
members. Thus not many from the trade union Solidarity joined RS AWS. At the
foundation of RS AWS the political leaders talked about the creating a mass
party consisting of 200 to 300.000 members. However, before long those plans
soon had to be revised. In 1999 alltogether 35,000 were registrated as members
of RS AWS, only one quarter of those members came from the trade union
Solidarity. In Selesia the trade union Solidarity had 200,000 members, but only
about 2,000 took the decision to join RS AWS. RS AWS constituted the greatest
group in AWS with 138 members of the Sejm and the Senate elected in 1997. The
aim was to foster more cohesiveness, mediate between the liberal groups, e.g.
SKL and the Christian-National ZChN and maintain the position as the strongest
“leg” inside AWS.
Before long RS AWS became an
elite driven party, a caucus type party according to Duverger’s terminology and
cartel party in Kirchheimer’s. Not only the trade union Solidarity, also the party movement AWS (RS AWS) moved away from old ideals back to
1980-1981. Like in the trade union Solidarity a centralisation of power took
place, yet without introduction of more efficient decision-making procedures.
Almost all important decisions were first taken after long and complicated
negotiations. Several decisions could not be implemented in practice due to
resistance from the different political veto factions inside AWS. The chairman of RS
AWS, Jerzy Buzek, recognised some of the problems. According to him a better
developed party organisation on powiat-level and better programmatic work
should increase the influx of new members. On regional, i.e. voivod-level, RS
AWS was clearly better organised compared with the powiat-level. The most
important was where to find the policy-deciding
centre. At the congress January 1999 held in Gdánsk Jacek Rybicki was
elected as the new chairman of RS AWS’ political council. His principal duty
was to reach a compromise between the different factions inside AWS and
formulate a common political programme, thus contributing to finding a common
political denominator for the party federation taken as a whole.
Several political groups took the decision to
join RS AWS, including minor ones such as ”Porozumienie Ludowe”, ”Ruch dla
Rzeczpospolita”, ”Nowa Polska”, ”Liga Krajowa” and ”Stowarzyszenie Rodzin
Katolitickich”. The influence of those groups in AWS due to the low
institutionalisation and modest voter-appeal, but by joining RS AWS the
political influence, it was calculated, might increase. By admitting the small
political groups RS AWS would be able to compete better with well-organised
groups and ”legs” inside AWS such as the Christian-National party ZChN and the
conservative-liberal group SKL. Several times SKL[7] and ZChN, both members of the election
alliance AWS, criticised the centralisation of power in the trade union
Solidarity and RS AWS.
After several delays and postponements the
first congress opened in February 1999, two years after the foundation. Before
the 1999 congress Marian Krzaklewski tried to bring RS AWS under his control
and avoid a power struggle by recommending Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek as the
new chairman. Jerzy Buzek was elected as the new chairman, Deputy Prime
Minister Janusz Tomaszewski became general secretary, his primary task was the
day-to-day work of the party. A seven-man group (the ”G-7”) should take care of
day-to-day problems. The four political groups (”legs”) and the chairman Marian
Krzaklewski were represented in the “G-7 group”. Before that took place Marian
Krzaklewski had also been re-elected as the chairman of the AWS parliamentary
group and the trade union Solidarity. Jacek Rybicki became chairman of
political council. Almost all elections were taken unanimously and without
previous discussions. Later Tomaszewski, the general secretary, was forced to
leave the post because of suspicion of cooperation with the secrete police
before 1989.
In the late 1990s, like the trade union
Solidarity the party movement (RS
AWS) did not remind us about the old Solidarity. Also RS AWS failed to decouple
trade union Solidarity from politics. As noted by Jaroslav Kurski[8],
also RS AWS acted like a political entity that primarily aimed to acquire
(”zdobyc”) and after that keep ("”trzymac") political power. Because
of that, Kurski argued, RS AWS and AWS as a whole reminds us of Vladimir
Meciars party The Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). As we shall see,
RS AWS’ problems has to be seen in the context of the problems inside AWS as a
whole and the ongoing debates about establishing a more “functional federation”
The
first breaches of party discipline took place soon after the 1997-election. As
predicted by Andrzej Rychard, the
dissolution of AWS and the AWS-UW government, inevitably would change the
political pathways, which Poland had followed. Not only left parties, also
extremist parties such as Leppers ”Samoobrona” or Tyminskis ”Party X” might
benefit from a new split among the right wing parties, resulting in an even
stronger scepticism against political parties in general (“anti-politics”).
Before
long Adam Slomka from KPN-OP and Janusz Lopuszanski representing the
Christian-National ZChN were excluded from AWS due to lack of party discipline;
after that they formed their own right wing political association ”Poruzomienie
Polski” (PP). In a common declaration they criticised what they called “the
servility” of AWS toward the EU and the lack of a family-friendly tax policy.
Furthermore, sharp criticism was turned against the then finance minister
Leszek Balcerowicz, e.g. the proposal of a new tax system with a linear,
non-progressive tax scale.
At
the 1997-election the more fundamentalist Christian National groups became
rather well represented in the parliament. Many were from the
Christian-National groups were elected to parliament in spite of the fact that
they were placed long down on the candidate lists. Unfortunately, soon after
the election new “wars” erupted. The liberal-conservative faction SKL
unceasingly asked for more discipline and better policy-creation. However, the
demand for better party discipline, more party cohesiveness and a more
centristic policy line as recommended by SKL were impossible to carry through.
The
vice-chairman of the AWS’ group in parliament, Jacek Rybicki, expressed the opinion that AWS should constitute a federation of different political
groupings, which then should be transformed to a unitary political party or
party-federation. However, like The Republican Party in US there should be
place for different ideological “clubs”, all supporting the basic catholic
values. According to Rybicki AWS should be reshaped and after that constitute a
party with three different ”legs”, a trade union, a Christian-National and a
liberal one. However, it was difficult to reach an agreement on the most
important organisational questions between the different “legs”, especially on
those questions that concerned each political group’s representation and
influence on decision making.
Coming to power AWS moved towards a
“clientelistic” type cartel party persistently underlining possession of power
and technology of power and with close links to the economic sphere (“political
economy”). According to Antoni Dudek
the RS AWS was unable to assume the role of leadership in view of the low level
of professionalism, reluctance to pursue a consistent programme and the too
high expectations among the electorate. The ongoing professionalisation of the
Polish political scene made the future of the RS AWS look rather bleak (Dudek,
in Bächer etc, 2001:168).
The party leadership denied that the situation
looked so bad, however, it was recognized that RS AWS should be better to
obtain members from different social groups in society and that the party
behaviour should disprove the argument put forward by many observers that AWS
acted as a power orientated party and not much more. Several times Jacek Rybicki[9]
underlined that AWS was forced to transform itself to a functional association,
either in the shape of a unitary party, a federation of parties or a ”energetic”
political association (”porozumienie”). Time had run out for AWS as just an
“election coalition”. Functional leadership and more flexible decision-making
procedures were badly needed.
Also Wojciech
Arkuszewski[10], MP for
AWS-SKL, expressed the opinion that AWS had to move away from an organisation
consisting of veto group factions. In order to survive AWS had to transform
itself and subsequently constitute a functional association. In order to
acquire a sufficient cohesion and obtain the sufficient ”energy” in
decision-making. AWS needed a secretariat that could take the necessary
unpopular decisions and make sure that they were implemented by all political
groups. The present decision-making procedures were far too complex and not
least time-consuming.
The need of higher institutionalisation was
reflected in the several breaches of the party discipline, e.g. by voting in
parliament. As a result of that it was decided that future “deviationists”
would not be re-nominated at the forthcoming election. Several times Marian
Krzaklewski talked about the need of more discipline. Most political groupings
viewed the party alliance as purely tactical and temporary. Because of that not
much was changed as regards daily political practice. Thus more than 70 members
of AWS supported a vote of no confidence against the then minister for state
property Emil Walacz, and the party discipline was also broken at voting in
parliament on the state budget.
The end result of the organisational changes
adopted in January 2000 was more confusion. The day-to-day leadership (”G-7”)
was reconstructed and the presidium (”kolegium”) increased its membership from
19 to 25. Those changes weakened the position of SKL and ZChN. In its efforts
to streamline the organisation AWS had a “close eye” to the main adversary, the
left wing SLD, in which case the transformation from a party alliance to a
unitary political party has been considered as successful.
Thus AWS never acquired a strong leadership and
sufficiently flexible decision-making procedures. The political disagreements
inside the alliance were simply too frequent and the party discipline remained
too low. In fact, under the prevailing unfavourable circumstances the decision
to transform the “alliance” to a unitary ”standard party” or alternately remain
a loose institutionalised alliance was
never taken. Jerzy Buzek had to act as a mediator, trying to agree with all
groups involved before important policy decisions and nnside the government
Buzek had to fight with the Freedom Unions (UW) powerful finance minister and
vice-Prime Minister Leszek Balcerowicz. Thus Jerzy Buzek was forced to act as a
“man of reconciliation”, not a man of “decision and action”. Under those
circumstances, it was impossible to act – and think - long-term and strategic.
As a result, also the policy aspect was
neglected. In step with the decrease in voter support AWS was forced to give
solutions of problems “close to people” a higher priority, e.g. improve the
quality of the health reform. The proposal about a ”pact for the agriculture”
should limit the competition from populist and extremist parties such as
Leppers “Selfdefence” (”Samoobrona”). The need to improve the quality of the
laws and the law-making process in general was recognised from all sides. Nevertheless
Marian Krzaklewski declared that AWS’ crisis was a question about better
discipline and “the right attitudes”. Hence, the Solidarity elite tried to
avoid discussions about issues linked to the policy process, i.e. the bad
quality of decision-making procedures, the bad implementation of the four big
reforms and the many issues concerning formation of a ”post-communist
nomenklatura”.
All plans about foundation of a unitary party
were met with strong opposition. The aim to put ones own interests before the
interests of society have been widespread inside the right-national camp. As
already said, for many groups joining the AWS had been just a tactical
manoeuvre. Working in opposition the left wing SLD could profit from the
ongoing split in AWS and the low quality of law making. In the official
declarations the significance of institutionalisation and professionalisation
was underlined. As noted above, several proposals for more efficient and
flexible structures were put forward, but unfortunately too much time was
wasted on discussions on internal organisational problems such as the
distribution of power and how many ”legs” that should be presented in the
AWS-leadership. The final solution, however, was never found. The too strong
focus on organisational and internal questions damaged the program and
policy-formulation and as a result of that also the electoral support.
In the end AWS became more power-oriented,
mainly focusing on the “technology of power”. As said, the policy aspects were
neglected, instead AWS was focusing on appointments to strategic posts in
society and in that way failed to recognize the significance of the solution of
the concrete day-to-day policy problems. By many observers the sharp fall in
the voter-support was explained by the advance of a new post-communist
nomenklatura originating in the old Solidarity-movement.
Criticism became stronger also from inside AWS.
The member of parliament and the former powerful chairman of trade union
Solidarity’s Mazawsze section Maciej
Jankowski[11]
emphasized that the fall in voter-support was caused by the fact that the
interests of the party were put ahead the interests of society and that the
political style was lacking self-limitation. The appearance of a new ruling
class might mean the end of AWS. Also Alexander
Hall[12]
expressed the opinion that appointments to important jobs in society should
not take place according to political criteria, but according to qualifications
of people (”meritorycznosc”). The best of its ability AWS should fight against
all types of political capitalism. Jan
Parys argued that AWS’ problems were caused by bad leadership and treachery
against the Christian-social inspired election-programmes and discourses[13].
Former Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki[14]
expressed the opinion that the foundation of AWS as such was a success. The
main task was to create a sufficiently strong Christian-Democratic identity,
i.e. a viable party organisation culture. That task has not yet been solved. A
big problem was the lack of ability to take a rational position to political
power and to use the political power to modernise the economy with due respect
to the feelings and long-term interests of the Polish people. Organisational
cohesion and de-freezing of old ideological cleavages should be followed by
pragmatisation on policy-level. In order to survive AWS had to be transformed
to a “standard” political party or at least a functional federation consisting
of different political groups, unfortunealy nothing of that happened. Several
groups acted as veto-groups, not as policy-creating entities as has been the
case in the “post-communist” party-federation SLD. More policy-creation was
necessary, should AWS be transformed to a functional federation and in the
long-term a unitary political party.
Former leader of The Works Union (UP), Rychard Bugaj, expressed himself along
the same line. AWS had won the election in 1998, he said, primarily because
many Poles expected more honesty in politics and looked after new ideas that
were beneficial for the majority of the population[15].
Instead AWS became an alliance of power.
Contrary to AWS propaganda, no “breakthrough” took place on the policy level.
Thus AWS was mostly dealing with passive follow-ups on reform plans introduced
by the former SLD-PSL-government. Therefore AWS behaved as a movement without
leadership and political visions. The result was a drastic decrease in voter
support and in the end even dissolution and demise of AWS.
Part of the problems was that AWS was a young
party formation with the uncertainty which inevitably follows from that
regarding policy-formulation, organisation and creation of the necessary
solidarity and loyalty among the different groupings inside the alliance.
Disagreement inside the alliance increased when concrete policy initiatives had
to be taken. Strategies for coping with concrete policy were badly needed.
Unfortunately, too many in AWS were “moral-politicians” and politicians
believing in a ”historical mission” lacking the ability to think and act
long-term and strategic, unable to meet the double challenge of globalization
and europeisation. For that type of politicians the political culture of the
past was difficult, not to say impossible to eliminate. Even after the
take-over of governmental responsibilities, in which case more
institutionalisation and professionalisation was needed, personal interests and
identity politics were still in the front. Only so long as AWS was able to
define itself on the symbol-level facing the common enemy, a façade of unity
could be maintained. Thus many of the problems inside AWS can be found on the
actor level.
After the 1997-election, by most voters AWS
have been considered, not as a movement party but as a “party of power”, i.e.
with distinct cartel characteristics. In the late 1990s AWS occupied several
important positions, e.g. the Prime Minister and vice-prime minister came from
AWS, one third of the ministers, more than 100 members of Sejm and the Senate,
three chairmen on voivod-level and besides that 3-4,000 members of town and
regional councils and mayors. ”Catch-all” appeals were pushed forward, but the
stamp of a movement party disappeared. So the hypothesis that the new parties
move in the direction of catch-all cartel parties can be confirmed also in the
case of AWS.
The international contacts were few. It may
seem paradoxical that only the Freedom Union (UW), the most secularised among
the Christian parties, were represented in the all-European Association of
Christian parties. The monopoly of UW was not accidental, because the political
profile of UW was more consistent with the dominant pro-European and pro-market
secular trend in European politics.
According to the official declarations AWS
should express the collective interests of the majority of the Polish people,
and act in an inclusive and catch-all way. In practical life the organisation,
however, was governed top-down and bureaucratically. Nevertheless party
cohesion was almost absent both inside RS AWS and the party federation AWS and
between AWS’ many different ”legs”. The weakness on programme- and policy-level
in itself reinforced the well-known cartel-profile with focus on the
“technology of power”, thus neglecting policy development and programmatic
work. Also close links between politics and economy were striking. Thus
managers on big enterprises, on which the state were holding majority stakes,
were often nominated by the AWS, one example of that was Tomasz Tywonek, who
became a member of the executive board of TPSA (Telecom). Also close ties
between the AWS and managers in PKN Orlen (Polish Oil Company) have been
observed.
From the beginning a culture of debate has been
almost absent on macro political level as well as in the local party
organisations. Almost no discussions took place before appointments to
important jobs in society and important policy-decisions. It was even not even
discussed what the party should fight for. January 1999, on the last day of the
congress and without previous debates the first political programme was
adopted, but mainly as abstract symbolic declarations. Future Poland should be
”free and modern” based on ”strong families”, solidarity and market economy and
regulated according to Christian moral and ethics. That programme could hardly
appeal to many voters and to young people who paid most attention to living
conditions and solution of the concrete day-to-day problems. According to
”Pentor”, in late 1999 no less than 74 pct of the Polish people expressed
dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister and 82 pct. with the work of the
government as a whole.
1.10. The demise of
AWS
In the end, the decline in voter support and
insufficient institutionalisation had as the logical finale a reconstruction of
AWS ending with the demise of the “old AWS”. In December 2000 and January 2001
the Civic Platform (PO) was created
on the initiative of Maciej Plazynski, Donald Tusk and Andrzej Olechowski,
later AWS’ liberal “leg”, SKL with a narrow margin took the decision to leave
AWS and cooperate with the Platform (PO). Later, as the September 2001 came
closer, also the trade union Solidarity (NSZZ “Solidarnosc”) left AWSP. At the
same time the Kaczynski brothers created their own platform called “Right and Justice” (“Prawo i
Sprawedliwosc”, PiS), cooperating with Kazimiers M. Ujazdowskis, former
member of ZChN, ”Przymierze Prawicy”.
From Summer 2001, due to the election cooperation
with ROP, AWS changed name to “AWSP”
(“Prawo” meaning “Right”), now constituting an electoral alliance with three
“legs”, the RS AWS and the Christian parties PPChD and ZChN. In July 2001 ROP
cancelled its cooperation with AWS, also some groups in ZChN took the decision
to leave AWSP. Thus the Polish Right underwent a new deep transformation in the
year between the 2000 presidential election and the 2001 parliamentary
election, however, without being able to seriously undermine SLD-UP’s then
strong electoral position.
At the September 2001 election AWSP lost the
parliamentary representation, obtaining only 5.5 pct. of the votes, not enough
for party alliances to be represented in the parliament. After the election
defeat the federation re-establish itself in the shape the “Ruch Spoleczny”
(RS). On the IV party meeting in April 2002 Kzystof Piesiewicz was elected as
the chairman of RS, his aim was to move RS closer to the political centre and
establish party alliances with other non-postcommunist parties e.g. at the
regional and local elections in November 2002. According to the opinion polls,
at least until mid 2003 nothing indicated a political come-back at the next
ordinary national election.
At the 2001 election, in the Polish parliament
the Polish Right in general became well represented as the right nationalist
The League of Families and Kaczynskis and more moderate party “Law and justice
Party” ( PiS) gained representation in the Sejm. Furthermore, the liberal side
was represented by Citizen Platform (PO). In the beginning of year 2001 the
Platform (PO) was joined by the SKL, until then constituting a liberal AWS
faction. The Freedom Union (UW) and AWS, the two parties with a background in
the old Solidarity movement and “Solidarity myth” and occupying posts in
several post-communist governments, did not pass the treshold requirement of
five procent. Thus, a transition to a new stage of party and party system development
has taken place. Since the 2001 election Polish politics has become more
“ordinary”, but more stable and certainly not more predictable. The SLD-UP
government has become upopular due to bad governance and several political
scandals. The problem for the Polish Right, however, remains the anarchistic
political culture, lack of tolerance and loyalty and willingness on the
elite-level to enter political compromises.
1.11. Some
conclusions
Several times the question has
been raised, why the party alliance AWS failed while the left wing SLD
succeeded. In line with Michael D.
Kennedy (Kennedy, 1991:180) basically I find it fruitful to distinguish
between different types of alliances,
some has been based on economic
interaction, based on common socio-economic interests and networks, others
based on self-identification held up
by reference to a common enemy, after 1989 the “post-communists”. The focus on
the common “enemy” reinforced moral positions, with little room for political
negotiations, as negotiation and compromises both inside the party movement and
between parties appear as moral compromise and “treasury”. In parties and party
alliances based on self-identification, programmatic, policy and institutional
side and the economic goal function are neglected and downplayed such as we
have seen it in case of the trade union Solidarity as well as in the election
alliance AWS, the party movement RS AWS and the election alliance AWSP. As
we have seen, to understand “the meaning of Solidarity”, the many problems
linked to the internal constitution
of the movement, has to be be included.
Furthermore, many of AWS’ problems have been
policy-related and bound to low quality of public governance. As noted by Lena Kolarska-Bobinska[16],
a precondition for a political success is that the policy content is
communicated to the people in proper ways. Hence, time had passed when
parliamentary elections can be won thanks to vague and broadly formulated
political appeals and symbolic politics. More important than a cabinet
reshuffles and institutional infightings was to raise the quality of governance
and policy-implementation, to improve the whole philosophy of public governance
and the mode of decision-making (”filozofia rzadzenia”). Unfortunately, from
the outset AWS (and RS AWS) conducted too many of the wars against itself (”walka AWS z AWS”).
Thus many of AWS’
problems had much to do with low quality of governance, at least seen from the
majority of the electorate. Thus explanations of the demise of Solidarity and
AWS has to be found on several levels, on historical
level in the shape of a reactivation of old “We-Them” based discourses in
society with a striking tendency towards “over-ideologization”, on institutional level in the shape of
inefficient organisation and low institutionalisation on policy-level as
disagreements on the economic and social policy and the “day to day”
policy-formulation.
Maybe most important, the explanations has to be found on actor-behavioural level in the shape of the ongoing “wars in the top”,
the anarchic political culture on the Right, the extremely low party loyalty
and cohesion among the political elite,
the inclination to behave like “missionary” politicians and regard
politics as a fight of life and death.
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[1] Interview with Krzaklewski in Tygodnik Solidarnosc, 36 (572), 1999:4
[2] Interview with Wnuk-Lipinski, Zycie Gospodarcze, no.26, 28 June 1992:1
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[4] ”Obywatelski Project Konstitucji
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[5] The end result was even more
modest, only 1.1 pct.
[6] Michal Wenzel, ”Solidarity and
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[7] ”Stronnictwo Konserwatywno-Ludowe”.
[8] Jaroslaw Kurski,
”Czterdziestolatki”, Gazeta Wyrborcza,
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[9] Interview with Jaciek Rybicki,
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[10] Interview in Rzeczpospolita, 22.9. 1999:A4.
[11] Gazeta Wyborcza 18-19 September, 1999:8.
[12] Interview in Rzeczpospolita 20.9. 1999:A3.
[13] Tygodnik Solidarnosc 45 (581), 1999:12.
[14] Interview in Polityka no. 37 (2210), 11.9. 1999:21-22 and in Gazeta Wyborcza 29.-30.2. 2000.
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[16] Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, ”Kapitalizm
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