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

influence on the local level, should be maintained according to the party. The strongholds of theparty has been the small towns and thinly populated areas. For those reasons PSL could not assistthe government as regards the plans about reducing the number of regions (voivods) and introduce anew administrative middle level (the powiaty’s).The attitudes among the electorate living in rural areas have been interventionist and egalitarian.The farmers have typically been conservative minded and only rarely satisfied with the policyconducted by the governments, be they right or left. Many farmers felt that their jobs have lostprestige after 1989 and therefore expressed some “nostalgia” for the period before 1989, especiallythe “good 1970s” under Edward Gierek (“the retrospective utopia”).At the 1993 election PSL obtained some support from those farmers who before 1989 had beenemployed on the state own farms (PRG). The electoral success of PSL took place at the expense ofthose rural parties that had their origin in the Solidarity movement. Thus at the 1993 election PSLgained about 40 percent of the votes among farmers, however, among less educated only 17 percent(Knuzewski, 1998:151). On the other hand, at the1997-election many former PSL voters voted SLDand, as regards right-traditionalist minded people, Election Alliance Solidarity (AWS). At the 1997election AWS’ share of the farmers vote was 33 percent or almost the same share that voted SLDand first on the third place we find PSL.Thus the 1997 election- and later the 2001 election- punctured the myth that the farmers and theelectorate in rural areas constitute a well disciplined and stable voter group at every nationalelection bringing PSL in a key position. The 26 seats in the parliament elected in 1997 were not initself impressing, but enough to keep the party over the water surface. Most important was that theparty was a well organised unity and that representation in the municipial and regional councils keptintact. In other words, the PSL had gained an ”immune defence” in case of a temporary politicalsetback.The power struggle between Jagielski and Pawlak intensified after the 1997 election, but theresignation of Pawlak as the party chairman did not usher a policy-change. Jagielski took thedecision to form his own peasant party, but without any success. Working in opposition PSL triedto regain the voters the party lost to AWS at the 1997 election based on the calculation that it waseasier to recapture dissatisfied AWS votes than gain votes from left wing parties. At that time alsoSLD was in opposition to the government and like AWS not responsible for unpopular laws andpolicy initiatives.After the 1997 election PSL accused AWS of giving in to the liberal and pro-EU Freedom Union(UW). Especially the minister of finance Leszek Balcerowic was accused of conducting an asocialneo-liberal policy damaging for the rural areas and the employment in general 62 . According to PSLthe AWS-UW government’s policy onesidedly focused on combating inflation 63 . For that reasonseveral times PSL put forward votes of non-confidence to the minister of finance in the parliament.In short, to a great extent the policy demands of PSL have focused on limitations on sale of realproperty to foreigners, rejection of the new municipal and regional reform and more state support tothe family holdings, also in case of negotiations about a revised constitution. According to the party,the alternative to the AWS-UW economic policy was an active export orientated investment and62 See e.g. Jaroslaw Kalinowski, ”Proponujeme tzecia droge”, Rzeczpospolita, 16 January 1999.63 Interview with Kalinowski in Gazeta Wyborcza 11 February 1999:14.75