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

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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
In the late 1990’s it was almost fashionable to use the party label ”Christian”. However, in the midwaryears Christian parties had not played an important role in Polish politics and undercommunism such parties were forced to work underground. After 1989 Christian parties werereborn and re-activated. Like the notion ”social democratic”, the name ”Christian” signalled pro-European and pro-capitalistic attitudes. As we have seen, Christian parties covered a broad politicalspectre, representing extremist fundamentalist catholic party types and institutions like RadioMaryja and KPB-OP, at the 2001 election the League of Polish Families (LPR) as well as centreorientedpro-market political formations like the Freedom Union (UW) and the Centre Alliance(PC).2.12. Peasant Parties: PSL and “Selfdefence” (Samoobrona)Since 1989 class based parties with a broad appeal to rural areas have existed in almost all Centraland East European countries. In the Central European countries the most important have been theIndependent Smallholders Party (FKGP) in Hungary, the Polish peasants party PSL and the populistSammoobrona (“Self-Defence”), in the Czech Republic the centrist Christian, social-liberal andmoderate rural party KDU-CSL. Peasant parties have entered different party coalitions in Slovakia,never gaining seats in parliament when going alone. In the following sections we shall focus on thePolish PSL and Samoobrona (“Selfdefence”) and in a final section the Czech Christian DemocraticKDU-CSL.The Polish Peasants Party (PSL) emerged in November 1989 as a successor party of the UnitedPeoples Party (ZSL) that had been represented in parliament before 1989 and cooperated with thethen ruling communist party (PZPR). Support for Polish agriculture and the rural areas has beencrucial political question for the party. The basis for a rural class party is great in Poland as aboutone third of the Polish population is closelylinked with agriculture. The parties had to act as a ruralcatch-all party. However, soon different factions emerged. One faction supported Christian values,reminding us about in Christian-National parties like PL and ZChN, another faction was moresecular and pragmatic basing itself on the traditions from before 1989, first of all the then procommunistZSL.Polish agriculture can be divided in different social groups. The first group includes the bigger andmore efficient agricultural units that produce enough to sell their products to the market and bringthe farmer a yearly income comparable to other social groups. Another group only produce for ownconsume, and a third group consist of small inefficient units, on which the owners will be forced tofind new jobs because of merger of small units. If we take in consideration that about 100.000 jobsin mining had to be closed down and new great influx of young people to the labour market about2.5 to 3 mio. new jobs have to be created outside agriculture just to maintain the same level ofunemployment. To day about 60 percent of Poland’s poor live in the rural areas.Thus to cover all farmers in Poland by one party was no easy task. As a party the Peasants Party(PSL) reflected the structure of Polish agriculture. Factions representing the bigger units have beenconfronted those representing the small units. Nonetheless in some years the party succeeded tokeep a united facade, at least publicly. The disagreements, however, were growing before the 1997election. The minister of agriculture in the SLD-PSL government Roman Jagielski behaved like aspokesman of the greater agricultural units and expressed more pro-EU attitudes. His opponent wasthe then party leader Waldemar Pawlak who expressed the more traditionalist agrarian attitudes anddefended the smaller agricultural units. According to Jagielski most important was to create new73
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“This provisional situation chara
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marketisation and privatisationshor
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purposes, are channels for “expre
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the significance of strategic choic
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presidentialism gave rise to “flo
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antipolitics and reinforcement of a
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In the late 1990’s elections most
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determined primarily by “politica
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politics and antipolitics, all sign
Page 22 and 23: which attitudes to state regulation
Page 24 and 25: Anti-communism has been defined in
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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
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Page 38 and 39: analyses of party institutionalizat
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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
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Page 56 and 57: The formation of AWS can be conside
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
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Page 78 and 79: pressurizing the government to give
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Page 82 and 83: To conclude, the Freedom Union (UW)
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Page 86 and 87: such as KSCM and KSS in The Czech R
Page 88 and 89: The SLD leaders were mainly recruit
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Page 96 and 97: Has the Left any freedom of manoeuv
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Page 100 and 101: The Labour Union (UP), Democratic U
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