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

place after talks with each applicant. About one third were former members of PZPR, but amongthe new members, we also find many young people. Back in the 1980’s most former members ofPZPR and to day SLD-members had been reform-communists, at that time supporting politicalreforms and subsequently paving the way for the round table negotiations with the opposition in1988-1989.Wojciech Pielecki expressed the opinion that young people joined the party not because of theirattitudes to the past, but because of their personal conviction about Poland’s future. The past theyleft to the historians 87 . Therefore, he argued, SLD can no longer be considered as a party mostlyappealing to pensioners and former communists. 60 pct. of those voting on SLD in late 1990s, wereunder 40 years and therefore had no stake in the old system. A political learning process had takenplace since 1989. The choice of “new-old” party members were pragmatic, almost value free. Manywere engaged in the new private sector and had voted on Solidarity at the first elections, but theychanged opinion and left Solidarity disappointed because of the bad political style and policy-line.According to Pielecki, the fact that the communist past no longer played a big role was primarilydue to psychological factors. A more “cool” evaluation of the past, the period of real socialismincluded, was needed. People were almost overwhelmed by so many great changes in society thatinevitably the memories of the time before 1989 receded in the background. Therefore “a newauthentic thick line” towards the past had to be drawn like in the case in Spain after Franco. Thatwould open up for new more fruitful political alliances, maybe a historical compromise betweenSLD and the Freedom Union (UW). In principle SLD’s coalition potential was great as the barriersfor a historical compromise between SLD and UW were historical and only to a small extentpolicy-related.At the 2001 election no less than 3.5 mil. young Poles could vote for the first time. So the politicalparties tried to appeal to young voters who often did not move to the ballot box. According topublic opinion polls about 40 pct. of the first time voters would vote SLD. Thus SLD had alsobecome a “party of the youth”. SLD obtained the greatest support in all important social groupsirrespective of sex, age, education, means, working place and home place. At the earlier electionsthe majority of best educate had decided to vote the Freedom Union (UW), now the same majorityvoted SLD. Opposite SLD’s then strongest political rival, the right wing AWS, had the greatestelectoral support among older people, private entrepreneurs and people with short-term educationand training.The programme proposal put forward at the 1999 founding congress underlined that no “third way”existed between planned economy and market economy. As put by the chairman for the programmecommission, Andrzej Celinski, the pathway in the economic policy had been laid already in the“Balcerowicz plan I”, set in motion shortly just after the formation of the first Solidarity-ledgovernment in 1989. Only minor adjustments in that plan were possible. Thus, only smalldifferences existed between the policy of the neo-liberal Leszek Balcerowicz and the left wingeconomist and later prime minister Marek Belka. Nevertheless, Celinski argues, the Left is obligedto give the socially weakest in society a new chance and equalize the far too big regionaldifferences in social welfare.87 Rzeczpospolita 23 August, 1999:A2 and Wojciech Pielecki, ”Trup niezgody”, Gazeta Wyborcza, 15 November, 1999and my own interview with SLDs Tadeusz Iwinski, Warsaw 20 October 1999.94