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

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such as KSCM and KSS in The Czech Republic and Slovakia. SL and its political core SdRPbelonged to the second group.At the first congress about 1.000 of the PZPR delegates took the decision to join the new Republicof Poland’s Social Democratic Party (SdRP). In spite of loss of several members the new partySdRP emerged as rather strong institutionally. Three years after the foundation SLD had 6,000members, and 1,500 had joined the social democratic youth organization (“SocjaldemokratycznaFrakcja Mlodych”). Tadeusz Fiszbach, the then party secretary in Gdánsk, created his own party,Poland’s Social democratic Union (PUS). However, that party ceased to exist before the end ofexpiration of the contractual parliament and did not run for the election in 1991. Many from PUSlater joined the new party Union of Work (UP). The main problem was weak organization and lackof money.After the defeat at the election in 1989 nothing suggested that SLD should constitute a any strongfactor in Polish politics. However, the “wars in the top” inside Solidarity and the right camp, gaverise to new opportunities. At the 1990 presidential election the SLD’s candidate, WlodzimierzCimoszewicz, gained almost 10 pct. of the votes, at that time considered as a satisfactory result. Inthe long run SLD could not lean only on the support from the old power elite and socially deprived.SLD also had to gain votes from former Solidarity-voters and young people who resisted catholicfundamentalism, demanding freer access to abortion and equal opportunities for men and women.The economic policy was less significant, because the socio-economic problems seemed impossibleto solve and the differences between the political parties seemed insignificant in the eyes of mostpeople.At the time of the foundation SLD consisted of 33 different political groups. To the most importantbelonged The Republic of Poland’s Social Democracy (SdRP), among the other groupings we find• Piotr Ikonowicz’ Poland’s Socialist Party (PPS)• Women’s Democratic Union• Poland’s Green Party• The Association Wisla-Oder• New Democracy• The trade union OPZZ and some branch trade unionsAlso the Independent European Initiative (NIE) and the orthodox political association “Proletariat”joined the SLD. It was hoped that the ortodox “Proletaryat” would change profile and constitute amore politically liberal association and thus join the common party line. However, that did nothappen and in 1998 “Proletaryat” took the decision to leave the SLD. In order to broaden the voterappeal also individuals without formal belonging to SLD was “adopted” and somehow attached toparty.86
PPS was rooted in the old Polish Social Party (PPS), a patriotic socialist party established alreadybefore WWI. PPS joined SLD shortly before the 1993 election. Evidence showed that the PPS wasnot able to obtain parliamentary representation alone due to low voter support and high thresholdrequirement (five percent). PPS’ participation was important because SLD strived to loosen thebonds to the past and become a democratic and relevant political party. However, the decision tojoin SLD was not taken unanimously, e.g. it was resisted by Gregory Ilka London based wing of theparty. When SLD in the late 1990’s transformed into a “normal” standard party, PPS andEconomics left the new SLD.In the 1980’s the OPZZ, also a part of SLD, had been the only legal trade union in Poland. After1989 OPZZ tried to present itself as a trade union in the more classical social-democratic senseopposite the right wing Solidarity with the close links to the church and right wing groups. Since1989 OPZZ gained more members than Solidarity. Inside the SLD the trade union OPZZ just likePPS represented the more traditional trade union oriented line. Thus OPZZ criticized what it calledthe SLD-PSL-government’s “liberal” policy line. In some cases the party discipline was broken e.g.at voting on the budget for 1993, leading to the exclusion of the vice-chairman StanislawWisniewski from SLD. Roughly speaking OPZZ contained two different “factions”, one of themwanted to “politicize” the trade union according to the Solidarity model. After that OPZZ should beintegrated in the Left “milieu” in Poland and gain its own political representation (“Ruche LudziPracy”). Another “fraction” wanted to follow a stricter trade union line without too much“politization”. At the presidential election in 1990 OPZZ was divided in two different groups. Somefrom OPZZ supported UD’s candidate Tadeusz Mazowiecki, other groups SLDs candidateWlodzimierz Cimoszewicz.Before the 1991 election a political rapprochement with SdRP took place, so the trade union OPZZtook the decision to join SLD. At the 1991 election no less than 66 candidates from OPZZ wereelected to parliament. Contrary to Solidarity the trade union OPZZ usually behaved loyally to SLDand for that reason refused to take part in the many anti-government demonstrations organized bySolidarity. Thus the support to the more fundamentally trade union line was limited. WhileSolidarity alternately supported and criticized its “own” government, OPZZ acted as a politicallyloyal connection to the working class calling upon classical social democratic tradition. SLDleadership adopted a distinctly instrumental attitude to OPZZ. From the outset the bonds betweenAWS and Solidarity were stronger than between the trade union OPZZ and the party alliance SLD.As we have seen, the foundation of AWS in 1996 was primarily due to the work of the trade unionSolidarity (“S”) 78 .The differences between the two big trade unions, Solidarity and OPZZ, proved to be insuperable.Solidarity joined bilateral negotiations with the SLD led government only in case of the three partycommissions between the government, the employers and the trade unions without participation ofOPZZ. Thus, the prospects for establishing a functional social dialogue were not promising, bothbecause of lack of cooperation on the trade union side and weak organization on the employers side.Because of the cooperation with the post-communists Solidaritys accused OPZZ of being a nonauthenticspokesman of workers interests. For obvious reasons the willingness and possibilities tobe involved in corporative structures was more limited under Solidarity-led governments. Opposingthe governments led by Solidarity OPZZ sometimes cooperated with populist trade unions like“Solidarnosc 80” and “Samoobrona”.78 Underlined by e.g. Edmund Mokrzycki in an interview in Rzeczpospolita 25 February 2000, ”Oczu zamydlic sie juuznie da”, and confirmed in an interview with me (SR), Warsaw October 1999.87
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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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After 1989 different types of polit
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complex project for transition unde
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Page 44 and 45: expected, much due to the many spli
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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 84 and 85: Polish middle class. Thus, in Janua
Page 88 and 89: The SLD leaders were mainly recruit
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