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

According to the original plans the federalisation of AWS should ensure that AWS would be able toexpress broad appeals. Therefore, in order to speed up the process AWS’ member organisation, theSocial Movement-Solidarity Electoral Action ( ”Ruch Spoleczny AWS” (”RS AWS”)), wasestablished 8 January 1997. However, RS AWS had a difficult start. The first congress waspostponed due to the lack of agreement on AWS’ future structure. Moreover, from the beginning itwas unclear whether RS AWS should constitute an extension of the trade union Solidarity or just anindependent policy-creating unity inside AWS. Formally RS AWS declared itself ”independent”,but the political practice became different. In the statutes of RS AWS there was talk aboutcooperation with NSZZ Solidarnosc, i.e. the trade union Solidarity. It was no easy task to find theoptimal compromise between so many different opinions about the policy line and institutionalconcepts.Some problems were institutional, to a great extent due to the low number of party members. Notmany from the trade union Solidarity joined RS AWS. At the time of the foundation politicalleaders there was talk about creating a mass party consisting of 200 to 300.000 members. However,those plans soon had to be revised. In 1999 35,000 persons were registrated as members of RSAWS, and among them only one quarter came from the trade union Solidarity. In Selesia the tradeunion Solidarity consisted of 200,000 members, but only 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 afterthe election 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” in AWStaken as a whole.Before long, RS AWS became an elite driven party, a caucus party according to Duverger’sterminology and a cartel party in Kirschheimer’s. The chairman of RS AWS, Jerzy Buzek,recognized some of the problems. According to him better party organization on powiat-level andbetter programmatic work might secure a greater influx of new members from differebt socialstrata. On the voivod-level RS AWS seemed to be better organized, and inside the parliament RSAWS constituted the greatest single group in the AWS group in parliament after the 1997 election.The most important was to find the policy-deciding centre. At the congress held in January 1999 inGdánsk, Jacek Rybicki was elected as the new chairman of RS AWS’ political council. Hisprincipal duty was to foster the necessary compromises between the different factions inside thealliance and work out a common political programme, thereby reaching a common politicaldenominator for the AWS as a whole.Some other 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”. These groups had no big influence due to lowinstitutionalisation, too few members and modest voter-appeal, but by joining RS AWS the politicalinfluence might be increased. By admitting these groups into the alliance RS AWS may better beable to compete with well-organized groups and ”legs” such as the Christian-national party ZChNand the conservative-liberal group SKL. Several times SKL and ZChN, both members of AWS,criticized the centralisation of decision making both inside the trade union Solidarity as well as RSAWS 48 .48 ”Stronnictwo Konserwatywno-Ludowe”.60