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

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innovation was formation of the political programme council (“rada polityczno-programowa”)consisting of party members as well as individuals representing different organizations that werecooperating somehow with SLD. Thus, some non-party candidates could be found on SLD’s list atthe elections, even representatives from religious organizations. The main task of the council was toput forward a new political programme and bring to the party federation a new broad “catch all”profile. Of the 32 groups in the “old” federation only five groups refused to join the new party SLD.However, the closing down of the election alliance SLD could not take place without critique,especially in the party daily “Trybuna”. The PPS-leader Piotr Ikonowicz did not want to join aunitary political party, arguing that SLD should remain a party federation. Some defectors eventook the decision to join the peasant movement party Samobrona. It seemed impossible to closedown a party like PPS that had existed in almost 100 years. However, PPS’ options outside SLDwere few. The prime motive to join the SLD was to be represented in parliament. The withdrawal ofPPS did not bring any negative consequences for SLD as a whole, but PPS’ views had some supportin some other political groups inside the alliance. However, many in SLD considered PPS and notleast the chairman Piotr Ikonowicz as an embarrassment because of his uncompromising politicalstyle. Before 1989 Piotr Ikonowicz had been political dissident, but since 1989 he has persistentlydefended classical trade union values and criticised SLD for the rapprochement to the FreedomUnion (UW), also the old “apparatchik” Leszek Miller was accused of “sabotage” because of theplans about etablishing a new unitary left wing party SLD. Opposite Ikonowicz, after thetransformation of SLD the former “party boss” Leszek Miller behaved much more centre-orientatedand pro-western.As said, much critique came from the party newspaper “Trybuna”, and especially directed againstLeszek Miller who according to the opponents behaved in dictatorial ways without being able topresent to the public any consistent and politically realizable political alternatives to the governmentpolicy. Thus SLD was in danger of constituting a non-ideological cartel party without presentingrealistic alternatives to the electorate. Former Prime Minister Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski argued theopinion that SLD have several intelligent leaders and many experienced administrators with aprofound knowledge about governmental and public affairs 84 . However, gradually SLD became a“party of social democrats in smoking” with a distinct market economic, technocratic and westernintegrationist profile. One of the main problems problem is that SLD seems to neglect those policyproblems that troubles Polish people in their every day life; instead the leaders of the party havebeen focusing too much on unimportant “apparatus talk”. The question of transforming SLD into aunitary standard political party should have belonged to the less important political options, but thesubject was given the highest priority. According to the critics the new unitary party tended to begoverned top-down, almost according to a new-old Leninist principle based on democraticcentralism.Also different views about the procedures connected with the foundation of the new SLD existed.One group expressed the opinion that a discussion about the party programme should take placebefore the formation of the new party organization. Another group used the argument thatfunctional organisation and a well-disciplined party apparatus should have the first priority. Formerpresidential candidate for SLD and former Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz kept a lowprofile, but indirectly he supported the first group. Interviewed in the Polish weekly “Polityka” hesaid that the new SLD under no circumstances should move towards a centralist governed unitary84 Anna Bogusz, Dorota Mecieja, Zofia Wojtkowska, ”Falszywa lewica”, Wprost, 18 May, 1999:22-23.92
party. The highest priority should be given the development of a democratic party culture anddebate 85 .Most difficult was to close down of The Republic of Poland’s Social Democratic Party (SdRP), theold SLDs strongest single political group. It has been argued that since 1989 SdRP had been SLDs“salvation”. In the first years after 1989 it had demanded much courage and willpower to join SLD.At that time SDL was exposed to several heavy attacks from right wing parties. Nonetheless, afterthe closing down of the old SLD people with a background in the old SdRP did not gain anyprivileges compared with those who joined the party after the crisis in Solidarity and demise ofAWS.The new SLD’s organizational structure and political programme was adopted at the first congressin December 1999. At the founding congress SdRP, the “core party”, was forced to take thedecision about dissolving itself. The party members and the members of parliament should decidefor themselves whether to join the new SLD on an individual basis or not. According to normalPolish standard women were well represented in the interim leadership of the party, 8 out of 27were women. Also representatives from the newly established coordinating groups on the voivodlevelwere included in the party leadership. Furthermore, some important posts were given toformer members of the Freedom Union (UW), e.g. Andrzej Celinski, a former member of UW andKOR, and later, in 2001 minister of culture, elected as chairman of the commission that preparedthe new SLDs first political programme. The election of Andrzej Celinski was a tactical move, asthe choice of Andrzej Celinski might remove what SLD called “the most irrational in Polishpolitics”, the division of the Polish population in “We” (i.e. Solidarity) versus “Them” (i.e. the“post-communists”) 86 .However, not all groups were represented in the leadership. Jerzy Urban’s organisation NIE(“Niezalezna Inicjatywa Eurpejska”) requested that, but the request was refused. The new SLDleadership hoped to obtain 100,000 party members, held up by the increase in electoral support.Already in October 1999 21,000 people had joined the new SLD on an individual basis. From thattime no legal connection existed between the old and new SLD. To the still unsolved problemsbelonged the party debt, so before closing down the old SLD the new SLD had to pay 2.5 mio. zlotyto the Polish state.At the first congress Leszek Miller was elected as the chairman of SLD by an almost unanimousvote. The choice of five vice-chairmen was met with more excitement. Here Leszek Miller had hisown way, as both one woman (Lybacka), a representative from OPZZ, and Andrzej Celinski, thedefector from UW, were elected. Also one of the vice-chairmen for the Sejm (Borowski) and JerzySzmajdzinski, a close friend of Miller, became one of the party vice-chairmen. Opposite, formerPremier Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz was not elected. The congress decided that womenshould constitute at least 30 pct. of the candidates to elections, increasing to 50 pct. in the year2007.The new party organization was divided in 160 local party units with 16 party coordinators on thevoivod-levelm thereby obtaining the best territorial coverage as possible. As noted above, collectivemembership of the party was replaced by individual membership, and also members of OPZZ hadto join the new SDL on an individual basis. The admission of new members in the new SLD took85 Polityka, no. 40 (2213), 2 October, 1999:30-31.86 Put forward e.g. by Cimoszewicz in Polityka no.40 (2213) 2 October, 1999:30-31.93
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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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window of opportunity in spite of s
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analyses of party institutionalizat
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political messages and slogans. Thu
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Page 44 and 45: expected, much due to the many spli
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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
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Page 60 and 61: According to the original plans the
Page 62 and 63: values. According to Rybicki, as so
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Page 66 and 67: 2001 parliamentary election, howeve
Page 68 and 69: and workers voted ZChN. At the 1993
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Page 76 and 77: industrial policy. According to the
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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
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