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

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industrial policy. According to the party the import of investment goods took up too little space.Foreign investments were to a too large extent been concentrated on retail trade and simpleproduction. The party also argued in favour of a more efficiently working system of tax and customadministration and collection. According to calculations of the party itself the Polish state wasdeprived more than 3 bio. zl. in tax and custom revenues, more than the state support to polishagriculture pr. year. Due to these factors Polen was in a weakened position in the internationalcompetition. In case of Polish membership of the EU Poland might one-sidedly become a marketfor sale of products produced in the present EU countries and other more competitive marketeconomies.Thus, aiming to protect Polish places of work the PSL maintained a rather EU-sceptical line,especially as regards import of EU-subsidized food products. In addition, the party has aimed atincreasing the export to the traditional markets in the East, especially to Russia in return for moreRussian oil and gas. Furthermore, the party has put forwards fincially expensive proposals, e.g.writing off the debt for students after five years employment. In general economic populism hasbeen striking, but not xenophobic and anti-semitic. Finally, among the PSL voters the majorityconsists of men. Opposite, the League of Polish Families (LPR) mostly appealed to the femalevoters.The defeat at the 1997 election led to “soul-searching” inside the party. As said, the election wasfollowed by an internal split. However, at the 1998 municipal and regional elections PSL obtainedmore political strength due to the electoral cooperation with the Labour Union (UP) in the shape ofthe election alliance “Prymierze Spoleczne”. In the case of “Przymierze Polski” were not dealingwith a permanent alliance such as was at least the intention in the case of SLD and AWS. As notedearlier, the alliance between PSL and UP can be regarded as tactical, aiming at gaining the bestpossible representation in local and regional councils and the greatest possible political influence.Inside the alliance PSL gained the strongest position due to greater party institutionalisation andmore political experience amon its leaders.The decision about joining the election alliance with UP (and KPEiR, a pensioners party) was takenalmost unanimously, however, without support from the former party chairman Waldemar Pawlak.According to Pawlak, by joining the alliance the Peasants Party (PSL) may loose its identity.According to the majority of the party leadership that argument was based on the wrong assumptionthat PSL still was a party in government and strong enough to do everything it wanted. Pawlakbecame rather polically isolated inside the party, both inside the party leadership and theparliamentary group. Some observers expressed the opinion that Pawlaks uncompromising lineconcerning coalition building shall be seen as a wish about a fast political come-back. However, therelatively good election result for the coalition at the 1998 local and regional election weakenedPawlak’s position.The decision to cooperate with the Labour Union (UP) was strategical 64 . The alternative tocooperate with the Labour Union (UP) and KPEiR was the establishment of a “national front”(“blok narodowy”) in cooperation with ROP, KPN and the people around “Radio Maryja”. Thatsolution was not attractive. Seen from PSL the Labour Union (UP) was in possession of a strongerorganisation at elections and also a more reliable partner than the parties and groups on the Rightsuch as ROP, KPN and “Radio Maryja”. Opposite the neo-traditionalistic parties UP and KPEiRappealed to broad voter groups, mostly workers and pensioners. For the same reasons, after the64 Ewa K. Czaczkowska, ”Teraz z lewica”, Rzeczpospolita 8 July, 1998:5.76
local and regional elections in autumn 1998 UP became the favourite partner for the SLD. Mostimportant was to balance the political strength of AWS-UW because of the possession ofgovernmental power by those parties. PSL’s cooperation with AWS has been modest on all levels,in parliament, in regions as well as on local level. The Freedom Union (UW) and minister offinance Leszek Balcerowicz was considered as the main enemy of the party. Therefore AWS’cooperation with the liberal Freedom Union (UW) was heavily critisised. At the 1997 election AWShad “stolen” many votes from PSL, now the main task was to bring those votes back to the party.In the end PSL overcame the crisis. Once more, the slogan that “institutions do matter” wasconfirmed. Just after the election defeat in 1997 there was also talk about focusing more on theelectorate living in the bigger towns. The risk was a loss of votes in rural areas. That argumentspoke in favour of keeping the old policy line, maybe in close cooperation with ideologicallysimilar parties. After the 1997 election defeat also the party organisation was tightened. Thus, seenover the whole period since 1989 PSL has been well represented both regionally and locally, hasobtained a solid membership basis with a fairly good schooling of deputies and candidates. Theparty leadership succeeded in professional ways to conduct election campaigns, e.g. timing thepress conferences and preparing the election strategies 65 . Unlike under the Pawlak leadership PSLwas no longer governed by a small group of experts and advisers. In the late 1990’s the partychairman was assisted by more than 20 political and economic experts working much moreprofessionally than before.However, after the election defeat in 2001 PSL lost several of its party members. At the same timethe split between “pragmatists” and “nationally orientated” people in the party and increasingcompetition from Samoobrona to weakened the cohesion on both the leadership and parliamentarylevel.As noted above, after the 2001 election the party took the decision to join the SLD led government,but first after a nine hours long meeting and heated debate, where about one fourth of the delegatesvoted against taking governmental responsibilities. The majority referred to the too manyconcessions on important policy issues, e.g. PSL’s demands about low VAT on food products andproduction machinery, lower influence to the monetary political council of the National Bank,financial support to debt hidden Polish banks (PKO, BP, BGK, BGZ) and the lower interest rates ingeneral. Furthermore, according to the critique from PSL, more income to the state fromprivatizations should be used as support for job creation and not to cover the deficit on the statebudget. In March 2003 the PSL had to to leave the government due to low voting discipline inparliament. Being in opposition, a new split emerged inside the party concerning the attitude toLeszek Millar’s minority government and entering alternative anti-governmental coalitions, i.e.cooperation with the Civic Platform (PO), PiS, maybe even “Selfdefence” (Samoobrona). Somemembers of the PSL parliamentary group also called for the resignation of the then rather pro-SLDparty chairman (Kalinowski), rejecting the “flirt with liberalsm”. The plan came to reality at the2004 party congress, at wchich Janusz Wojciechowski was elected to the new party Chairman, thusmarking a more “activist” and “populist” policy line, according to his opponents signifying the“death of the party”. .As noted above, after the 2002 election PSL was to a great extent threatened by Andrzej Lepperspopulist political association Samooobrona (“Selfdefence”), etablished in 1993. In the years beforeSamoobrona had organized several road blockades and violent protest demonstrations aimed at65 Krzystyna Naszkowska, “Ludowe muskuly”, Polityka no. 12, 20. marts, 1999:27-28.77
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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
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which attitudes to state regulation
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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
Page 36 and 37: window of opportunity in spite of s
Page 38 and 39: analyses of party institutionalizat
Page 40 and 41: political messages and slogans. Thu
Page 42 and 43: well established party culture may
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
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Page 72 and 73: establishment like than LPR’s. Th
Page 74 and 75: jobs in rural areas, especially sma
Page 78 and 79: pressurizing the government to give
Page 80 and 81: democrats, thereby locating itself
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
Page 102: Nevertheless, before that had taken
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