Development of Parties and Party Systems in ... - lah@sam.sdu.dk

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The formation of AWS can be considered as an attempt to institutionalize the trade unionSolidarity’s control over the right spectre on the political scene. Krzaklewski's proposal that allpolitical groups inside AWS should dissolve themselves before the 1997 election and after that be aunified political party, did not obtain the sufficient support. If such plans had been carried out,many of AWS’ later organisational problems may have been avoided. But from the very beginningAWS was divided both politically and institutionally. Several right wing groups had tried to obtainparliamentary representation at the 1993 election, but in vain. These parties did not accept loosingtheir identity. The support for AWS was tactical, not value, policy or programmatically based. Forthat reason disagreement on the actor level became striking. In short, AWS can best be consideredas a negative political alliance, established with the explicit aim to join forces against the ”postcommunists”and limit the waste of votes, however, without a common political platform and acommon vision of the future and without the necessary cohesion and loyalty on the leadership level.As regards party institutionalisation the election alliance AWS appeared as almost copying ”postcommunist”party alliance SLD, at least formally. The Republic of Poland’s Social democraticParty (SdRP) constituted the organisational kernel in SLD, just as the trade union Solidarity insideAWS. At the time of the creation of AWS the trade union Solidarity had 1.5 mill members, a figureno other right wing party or organisation was able to match. All other attempts to build up acommon front on the Right against the “post-communists” and President Aleksander Kwasniewskifailed. As a result of that the trade union Solidarity obtained an almost hegemonic position insideAWS, but mainly 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 parliamentIn the National Council (”Rada Krajowa”) the votes were weighted equally between the trade unionSolidarity and the other groups. The daily work was conducted by a coordinating group (”ZespolKoordynacyjny”). Furthermore, the principle about parity between the trade union and the 30 othergroups was applied. The day to day leadership was composed by the chairman of the NationalCouncil.The chairman of the AWS council was the trade union Solidarity’s leader, i.e. Marian Krzaklewski,thus reflecting the trade union’s strong position. Marian Krzaklewski was both the chairman ofAWS parliamentary group and the trade union Solidarity. The trade union had the decisive word byappointment of candidates for election in 1997. The strong trade union position could only beupheld until the election in 1997. The defeat of Krzaklewski at the presidential election in October2000 changed the situation. The danger of more decentralisation was obvious; the likely outcome ofmore decentralisation was even more factionalisation inside the alliance and slower decisionmakingprocedures.Not only the trade union Solidarity, also the party movement AWS (RS AWS) moved away fromold ideals going back to 1980-1981. Like in the trade union Solidarity a centralisation of power took56
place, yet without the introduction of more efficient decision-making procedures. Almost allimportant decisions were first taken after long and complicated negotiations. Several decisionscould not be implemented due to resistance from one or more political groups inside AWS.After the electoral victory in 1997 several new decision making procedures were introduced. Inspite of that AWS remained a faction divided party. The anarchistic political culture on the rightspectre of the political scene was impossible to change from the one day to the other. Theexperience from the time of Hanna Suchocka’s Solidarity led government showed that the splitwithin the right wing camp may become greater than that existing between government and theopposition.Former president Lech Walesa supported the foundation of AWS but he kept his hands away fromday-to-day politics. Later he established his own party, The Republic of Poland’s Republican Party,and put himself forward as a candidate at the 2000 presidential election. That election the formerpresident would not be able to win, as most opinion polls gave him only few percent of the votes 46 .He was, however, still able to destabilise the political scene in Poland. Because of the low electoralsupport AWS did not dare to take an open confrontation with former president Lech Walesa and hisnew party.On the ideological and programme level AWS covered a wide spectrum, unfortunately too wide.The political declarations were vague and non-committal, almost a-political. Most of them talkedabout ”authenticable” decentralization, de-communisation, construction of a market economy with a“built-in” dialogue between the employers and the employed, a family friendly tax system andvoucher-based privatization-schemes with some syndicalist and social characteristics. Also abstractdiscoursive formulations and declarations and vague national and Christian values were striking.Summarizing, we can say that from the outset AWS was an embodiment of a vision of the futurePolish society, a striving towards more justice, in some cases the wish of revenge. As said, this gaverise to a distinctly negative type political alliance, primarily directed against the ”post-communists”,and composed of several different ideological trends and political groups with the common aim toreturn to the political scene after the humiliating defeat to the post-communists at the election in1993, however without a common programme and with a low degree of cohesion on actor level.2.8. The different “legs”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”)In the parliament year 2000 the “trade union orientated leg” was lead by Jacek Rybicki, theconservative-liberal leg by Aleksander Hall, and the Christian-National with ZChN as the strongest46 The end result was even more modest, only 1.1 pct.57
Page 3:
“This provisional situation chara
Page 6 and 7: marketisation and privatisationshor
Page 8 and 9: purposes, are channels for “expre
Page 10 and 11: the significance of strategic choic
Page 12 and 13: presidentialism gave rise to “flo
Page 14 and 15: antipolitics and reinforcement of a
Page 16 and 17: In the late 1990’s elections most
Page 18 and 19: determined primarily by “politica
Page 20 and 21: politics and antipolitics, all sign
Page 22 and 23: which attitudes to state regulation
Page 24 and 25: Anti-communism has been defined in
Page 26 and 27: elections and the Slovak communists
Page 28 and 29: Cartel agreementsbetter representat
Page 30 and 31: Basically the absence of clear cons
Page 32 and 33: After 1989 different types of polit
Page 34 and 35: complex project for transition unde
Page 36 and 37: window of opportunity in spite of s
Page 38 and 39: analyses of party institutionalizat
Page 40 and 41: political messages and slogans. Thu
Page 42 and 43: well established party culture may
Page 44 and 45: expected, much due to the many spli
Page 46 and 47: Furthermore, the polarisation on el
Page 48 and 49: Finally, Solidarity can also be con
Page 50 and 51: whole, on the one side an authorita
Page 52 and 53: The economic recession and the grav
Page 54 and 55: election defeat more cooperation an
Page 58 and 59: group. RS AWS constituted the Chris
Page 60 and 61: According to the original plans the
Page 62 and 63: values. According to Rybicki, as so
Page 64 and 65: AWS should fight against all types
Page 66 and 67: 2001 parliamentary election, howeve
Page 68 and 69: and workers voted ZChN. At the 1993
Page 70 and 71: The League has been considered as a
Page 72 and 73: establishment like than LPR’s. Th
Page 74 and 75: jobs in rural areas, especially sma
Page 76 and 77: industrial policy. According to the
Page 78 and 79: pressurizing the government to give
Page 80 and 81: democrats, thereby locating itself
Page 82 and 83: To conclude, the Freedom Union (UW)
Page 84 and 85: Polish middle class. Thus, in Janua
Page 86 and 87: such as KSCM and KSS in The Czech R
Page 88 and 89: The SLD leaders were mainly recruit
Page 90 and 91: the falling popular support for pri
Page 92 and 93: innovation was formation of the pol
Page 94 and 95: place after talks with each applica
Page 96 and 97: Has the Left any freedom of manoeuv
Page 98 and 99: medicine, changes in the labour cod
Page 100 and 101: The Labour Union (UP), Democratic U
Page 102: Nevertheless, before that had taken
show all

Development of Parties and Party Systems in ... - lah@sam.sdu.dk

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?