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

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To conclude, the Freedom Union (UW) was mostly concerned about the macroeconomic reformsand simplication of the tax system, adaption to the EU and promotion of financial discipline. Theaim was the fast as possible transition to market economy and liberal democracy of the westerntype. The SLD led governments were mostly critisized for alleged mistakes in the economic policywithout laying much emphasis on the SLD’s and PSL’s common background in the old statesocialist system.Thus the Democratic Union (UD) mainly appealed to the moderate groups indside the opposition tothe communist former regime. Several leaders had taken part in the round table negotiations anddefended the agreements, that were entered during those negotiations. One of the spokesmen thechief redactor of “Gazeta Wyborcza” Adam Michnik argued that the round table negotations was themost clever political decision ever taken in the 20 century’s Poland 71 . Identity and moral politicswere at a discount and the attitudes to communisation and and the role of church was clearlydeviating. The Democractic Union (UD) and the Freedom Union (UW) spoke in favour of astructural, not a personal reckoning with the communist past and rejected the principle aboutcollective guilt. The lack of legal garantees in the proposals put forward about decommunisation bythe right-tradionalist parties was heavily critisized and several among the law proposals put forwardin the parliament were voted down by votes from non only “post-communists”, but also theFreedom Union (UW), even in times when the UW was in the government together with the AWS.The Freedom Union (UW) suffered from the low developed middle class. Thus, the liberal slogansappealed to rather few people, mostly “winners” of the transformation. The UW gained 14 pct. ofthe votes at the 1997 election, but the fight of gaining the middle class votes remained intense. Themajority of the new entrepreneurs did not vote the Freedom Union (UW), rather the left wing SLD,because new entrepreneurs were dependent on the state. The Freedom Union (UW) appealed to theupper strata of the middle class, but that group remained rather small. Furthermore, it became aproblem that UW was not able to present its own candidate at the 2000 presidential election. Thebreak with the AWS and the withdrawal from government did not mean an improvement in thevoter appeal. In fact, the decline in the share of the votes continued according to most opinionpolls 72 .The pressure against Balcerowicz increased after the presidential election autumn 2000, where theindependent liberal president candidate Andrzej Olechowski obtained about two third of thetraditionally UW votes. The final result was the resignation of Balcerowicz as party chairman. Theformer foreign minister and more social liberal inclined Bronislaw Gemerek was put forward as thenew chairman. In the end, Gemerek was elected as the new chairman, but first after contestedelection with the more neoliberal Donald Tusk. Donald Tusk spoke in favour of establishing amodern right wing party, democratic, pro-market and independent of the church. With the electionof Bronislaw Gemerek a more social liberal and centristic policy line was followed, but the electionof a new chairman (Gemerek) did not secure the renewal, that many voters and party membersdemanded.The change of party leader reinforced the competition about gaining support from the middle classvoters. The liberal president candidate Andrzej Olechowski put forward plans about closer71 Adam Michnik, “Independence Reborn and the Demons of the Velvet Revolution”, in Antohi and Tismaneauni,1999:83.72 Base on the analyse presented by Doreta Macieja, “Zakladnicy etosu”, Wprost, 3, September, 2000.82
cooperation between the liberal parties with SKL and Freedom Union (UW) as the key parties. Theleadership of the Freedom Union (UW) was not willing to give people from Olechowski’s campaccess to the party lists at the 2001 election as Olechowski put forward tough conditions for furthercooperation. Fullfilment of the conditions in reality would mean the closing down of the party andthe establishment of a new one. The messages from the chairman of parliament Maciej Plazynski tothe UW congress in December 2000 was more conciliatory than that given by AndrzejOlechowski 73 .In 2001 the looser in the fight for the post as UW chairman, Donald Tusk left the party and becameone of the originators of the new liberal platform, the Civic Platform (PO). After the election defeatin 2001 and the loss of parliamentary representation the chairmanship of the Freedom Union (UW)was taken over by Wladislaw Frasuniuk. Donald Tusk, together with other centrally placed peopleinside and ooutside the Freedom Union (UW) joined the new liberal party, The Civic Platform(PO). The leadership of the new party included the “three tenors”, besides Tonald Tusk, the thenchairman of the Sejm and memer of AWS, Maciej Plazynski, and the former liberal candidate forpresident, Andrzej Olechewski. The Platform (PO) mostly appealed to well educated and newentrepreneurs in the big towns, often without any links to the Solidarity movement and dissidentgroups from the time of communism. The electoral support was particularly great in the better offtowns and regions like Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia in the North. In conformity with the liberal basicprinciples the Civic Platform (PO) demanded a limitation of the influence of the trade unions, directelection of mayers, simplification and lowering of taxes including flat linear taxation and a hard lineagainst corruption and dominance of parties in the public sector. PO also talked in favour of a“simplification” of the constitution including a reduction in tthe number of MP’s and limitiation ofimmunity.Thus, the new part became a spokesman for “modern” secular European values in contrast to theconservative-traditionalistic and xenophobic values from PiS and in particular by the League ofPolish Families (LPR). Much critique was raised against the trade union Solidarity and not least thechairman Marian Krzaklewski. The political biography of the PO-leaders was different from thethose of the Freedom Union (UW). Opposite, UW, the Civic Platform (PO) appealed to the youngergeneration, who wanted new people in the front, not the old guys” from the beginning of the 1990’s.In other words, The Freedom Union (UW) had been hit by the well known political “metal fatigue”.In princple, the Civic Platform (PO) could have entered a historical compromise with the “postcommunists”,i.e. SLD, as the new party does not have roots in the dissident milieus and thedifferences on the policy level between the liberals and the SLD are rather modest. At leastunformal cooperation with the SLD could not be excluded, should the government cooperationbetween SLD-UP and the peasant party PSL fail 74 . In fact such “tacit cooperation” took place afterthe resignation of Leszek Miller as premier and the establishment of Marek Belka’s transitorygovernment.At the beginning the new platform gained surprisingly favourable figures in the opinion polls,mostly as a protest against the already established parties, and with strong support from the new73 Janina Paradowska, “Bronislaw Gemerek przewodniczacym UW, Unia do skladania”, Polityka no. 52 (2277), 23December 2000.74 Underlined e.g. by Jadwiga Staniszkis, see interview in Rzeczpospolita 22 May 2001 (“Polska potrzebuje rzadu SLDz Platforma Obywatelska”), in which she talkes about a SLD-OP government, at the same time exluding a SLD-UWgovernment for historical reasons.83
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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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elections and the Slovak communists
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Cartel agreementsbetter representat
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Basically the absence of clear cons
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