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

pressurizing the government to give more financial support for farmers. In the beginning of the1990’s Lepper himself had taken loans in banks and thereby bringing him in an almost insolubledebt situation. Thus Samoobrona mostly appealed to the medium size farms, the new classconsisting of rather well-off farmers who had run in debt in order to expand the farm or lease moreland and these well-off farmers were well represented in the party leadership and in the deputygroup in parliament 66 . Thus, most leaders of Sammobrona belonged to the group of rather well-offdebat-ridden farmers. Before 1989 many in the leadership of Samoobrona had even been membersof PZPR. Institutionally Samoobrona has been distinctly centralist with almost dictatorial power tochairman Andrej Lepper. The top-down deciscion making procedures evoked protest among localelected Samoobrona people and also inside the parliament group. Several defections from the partytook place in 2003.In the beginning of 2002 Lepper withdraw from the post as chairman, but only formally. Before the2001 election Andrzej Lepper had already run for the presidential election two times, at the 1995election only gaining1.3 pct of the votes, increasing the figure to 3 pct. in 2000. At the 1997election the share of the votes had been only 0.1 pct. At the elections in the 1990’s violent roaddemonstrations organized by Samoobrona became a barrier for election success. Opposite, at the2001 election those actions became an advantage for the party due to increasing social frustrationsin the Polish population.Opposite PSL Samoobrona obtained many votes in the bigger towns, in the last stage of the electioncampaign even gaining votes from former SLD supporters. The blackmail potential was great,opposite the coalition potential extremely low. As regards the EU membership Samoobrona hasfollowed an euro sceptic, but not totally negative policy line, also arguing for closer commercialrelations to Russia, including financial support for export of foodstuffs to Russia. The leadership ofSamoobrona included Tadeusz Mazanek, the leader of the association “No to the European Union”.Unlike Samoobrona, PSL followed a more euro-realistic line, and in the SLD-PSL governmentestablished after the 2001 election, the party persistently opposed concessions on sale of farm landto foreigners. Furthermore, the party has demanded minor independence for the National Bank, thatwas accused of a conducting a too restrictive monetary policy. The party put forward proposalsexpensive for the state budget, e.g. that debt of students at universities should be reduced andforgiven after five years in job in Poland. Economic populism has been striking, but not xenophobiaand anti-Semitism such as in the case of the extreme Right. Among those voting PSL a majorityconsists of men, opposite the voters of the Liga of Polish Families (LPR) that most appeals to femalvoters.Where Samoobrona literally worked extra-parliamentary, i.e. on the roads, PSL to a greater extent,and much due to higher party institutionalization, worked “through words”, being willing to enterpolitical compromises, working on regional and municipal levels and by putting forward proposalsin parliament. After the local and regional elections autumn 2002 Samooobrona in some casesdecided to cooperate with SLD. Later that cooperation was cancelled due to decisions taken in theSamoobrona leadership and in spite of protests from several Samoobrona local activists. In summer2003 17 Samoobrona deputies left the party. At least until the 2001 election PSL could benefit fromits greater organisational strength. To a great extent the differences on policy level between PSLand Samoobrona reminds us about the differences between the two right-traditionalist parties ZChN66 Barbara Fedyszak-Radziejowska, “Wies polska po wyborach:radikalizacja wyborów”, in: “Przyslosc polskiej scenypolitycznej po wyborach 2001”, Institut Spraw Publicznych, Warszawa 2002:62.:78