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

establishment like than LPR’s. The party has in some cases cooperated closely with the liberal CivicPlatform (PO) in parliament and at the municipal and regional elections in 2002, paving the wayfor close cooperation at the next national election. Jaroslaw Kaczynsky was elected as then newmayor of the capital Warsaw, maybe the first step to become the nex president after AleksanderKwasniewski. However, cooperation between Civic Platform (PO) and PiS on local and regionallevel did not make progress.Presidential parties has not been widespread in Central- and Eastern Europe. The Non-party Blockfor support of Reforms (BBWR), established just before the 1993 election as president “LechWalesa’s party”, was an exeption from that rule. From the outset, there was a striking similaritybetween BBWR and Jozef Pilsudski’s Non-party Block for Cooperation with the Government,founded in 1927 with the aim to strengthen Jozef Pilsudski’s authoritarian rule. Walesa’s intentionwas to mobilize the part of the Polish people that normally is politically inactive, especially peopleliving in the rural areas. If that happened many conflicts on the Right, he argued, could be avoided.The ultimate aim was to prevent a ”post-communists” political come-back and thereby secureWalesa's re-election as president. At the presidential election in 1991 PC supported Lech Walesa,later the cooperation was cancelled due to political rivalization and conflicting personal ambitions.When cooperation between PC and the president ceased, BBWR took over. Thus the right wingparties took different opinions both regarding president Lech Walesa’s policy and on questionsabout a new polish constitution. In fact BBWR created more conflicts than cooperation on theRight. Thus, the Democratic Union (UD) criticized the confrontational behaviour of the president(Lech Walesa) and decided to cooperate with SLD, PSL and UP on preparation of the new Polishconstitution.The BBWR was weakened due tothe defeat of Lech Walesa at the 1995 presidential election andafter that ceased to constitute any integrative force on the Right. From the beginning BBWRsinfluence in parliament was limited and other parties’ attitudes to BBWR sceptical. Most partiessimply saw the BBWR as a “presidential party”. After some time BBWR became almost invisiblein parliament.Like other parties on the Right also BBWR spoke about transition to market economy with manyreferences to Christian values. Its vision of the future Polish state was distinctly solidariccorporatistic(Knuzewski 1998:142). Democratic values were accepted in principle, but at the sametime the need of a stronger executive power and more law and order was underlined. More liberalabortion laws were refused and more cooperation with the church underlined, also proposals aboutmore financial support for loss-making enterprises and agriculture was put forward. Opposite manyother right-wing parties, BBWR passed the treshold requirement at the 1993 election won by the”post-communists”.At the beginning BBWR received some support among the new entrepreneurs and the anticommunistand anti-Russian part of the Polish population, but few votes from intellectuals. Mostvoter support was obtained in the Gdansk region and in the southern regions of the country.Recognizing that the chances of re-election to parliament were non-existing when “going alone”,also BBWR decided to join AWS. Before that decision was taken BBWR had taken part in otherassociations and discussion fora, e.g. ”Obóz Patriotyczny” and ”Konwent sw. Katarzny”, aiming togenerate cooperation among the too many mutually competing political groupings on the right.72