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

The League has been considered as a desperate attempt to stop the liberal “megatendency” in Polisheconomy that had been manifested in the shape off the Balcerowicz plans and rapprochement withthe EU. Ideologically the party has declared to be neither Left or Right. “We are a catholic andnational formation, for us the point of departure the catholic learning about the organisation of thesociety”, as formulated by the former spokesman for LPR Antoni Macierewicz shortly after the2001 election.On policy level most important for LPR has been the resistance against EU-membership, in thatcapacity has been named the “Polish talibans”, and in general the persistent defence of the“Polish’ness”. LPR denied to be antisemitic, arguing that enemies of the party are all, not only jews,who do not defend “Polish’nes”. The fight against the EU and globalization almost overshadowedthe fight against “postcommunism” and especially the left alliance SLD. The party has been infavour of single mandate system elections, decommunization and ban on sale of Polsh firms toforeigners. It has been extremely difficult to establish a daily leadership of the party and elect arespected leader in the parliament and not least to secure a democratic culture of debate inside theparty. Thus, before long the first splits and veto factions emerged and several resignations ofmembers followed.Most voters have been low eductated, women and people living in the minor towns and rural areas.According to informations from the party itself, in 2001 there were 15.000 party members, and theparty leadership included the inveterate EU opponent Jan Loposzanski. Basically the party can beconsidered as a broadly based conglomerate of different right-nationalist groups lead by politicianswho in several cases have represented three or four different parties on the Right. Party loyalty andparty cohesion have been rare in Polish politics and not least on the right. A rather moderate and“argumentating” line represented by Antoni Macierewicz have faced a more radical (“awanuty”)one represented by Gabriel Janowski. The personal infightings were reinforced due to the fact thatthe League has not, due to the demand from the “shadow leader” Tadeusz Rydzyk, found a strongleader and common spokesman.Most strikting have been the many disagreements between Antoni Macierewicz and ZygmuntWrzodak. Wrzodak was a key person in the LPR parliamentary group. On policy level Wrzodakwas close to Lupaszanski and at the same time defending closer cooperation with the populist partymovement “Selfdefence”(Samoobrona). The fight between Jan Lupaszanski and AntoniMacierewicz goes back to the early 1990’s when both were members of the Christian politicalassociation ZChN. Lupaszanski and Wrzodak were talking against the membership of EU, NATOand the US led war in Iraq while Macierewicz spoke about an “gaullistic” EU consisting of nationalstates. In the end, the group around Macierewicz decided to resign from the League. Thus, the manyconflicts in LPR have been personal and mostly taking place on the policy and especially the actorlevel.As noted above, in September 1999 AWS acquired its ”fourth leg”, called ”Porozumienie PolskichChrzescijanskich Demokratów” (PPChD). This new Christian association was composed of no lessthan three different Christian-National groups, ”Porozumienie Centrum” (PC), ”Ruch dlaRzeczpospolita” (RdR) and ”Porozumienie Polskich Chrzescijanskich Demokratów” (PChD) 60 .PPChD strived to transform AWS into a unified party or at least a functionally working federalstructure. The leader, Antonin Tokarczuk, argued that the trade union Solidarity should play a minorrole when dealing with the day-to-day politics. The best solution, he said, was the creation of a60 The three other ”legs” are ”RS AWS”, ZChN and SKL.70