Polish politics and perils of Sunday filing

The new polish Government has puzzled the mainstream media, both in Poland and abroad, from the very beginning of its formation in late October 2005. Parliamentary and presidential elections did not go according to widespread expectations. The “respectable” center-right party, Citizen’s Platform (Platforma Obywatelska (PO)), widely expected to win, was ambushed by its junior partner, Law and Justice Party (PiS), which successively gained the largest share of votes in legislative elections and prevailed in a tense duel with the PO candidate. Logically enough, after both elections, PiS started discussions with PO about the composition of the new government. PO, however, had difficulties coming to terms with its defeat and insisted that it should basically run the government and the Parliament. As these demands were not met, PO broke the talks in a huff, making widely reported statements that it is a real pity for Poland as PO has the best qualified people to run the country.

PiS then proceeded to form a government on its own. It was a delicate task. It could not form a ruling coalition with other parties: SLD was always off limits due to its association with ex-Communists, and two other parties, LPR and Samo-obrona, were small, their policy views were extreme and unrealistic and they were clearly more interested in rabble-rousing than in actual policy execution. Furthermore, once Lech Kaczynski was elected President, his twin brother (and main architect of PiS’s political strategy) could not become Prime Minister. Therefore, PiS made two decisions: it designated Kazimierz Marcynkiewicz as a new Prime Minister and appointed a number of little-known “technical” experts to some key posts, which had been reserved for PO partners. These included Zbigniew Zeliga, a well-known surgeon, who became Minister of Health and Teresa Lubinska, a little-known Economic Professor from a city of Szczecin, who took over the Ministry of Finance.

The assessment of the new government by the media was not made easier by the PR strategy of PiS. Kaczynski brothers are not only conservative but dare to say it openly. Lech Kaczynski, who was until his election as the President of the country a mayor of Warsaw, went as far as to forbid the gay parade in Warsaw. Kaczynskis distrust mainstream media and seek alternative channels of communications. Thus, their favourite media outlet is a deeply conservative and populist radio station, Radio Maria, run by an outspoken priest. If this sounds like the tactics which made the US Republican Party so successful, it is not an accident. Not only Kaczynskis’ goal is to build a Polish equivalent of the Republican Party but they are staunchly pro-American. The new Minister of Defense is Radek Sikorski, whose pro-US and pro-Nato positions are well-known in Poland and internationally. And the Government moved quickly to squash any rumors of early pullout from Iraq.

Given all these factors: deep political uncorrectness of PIS, their provocative media strategy and the unexpected composition of the government, it is not surprising that mainstream medias made their mind quickly and their view was not positive. Thus, based on Kaczynski’s gay decision, his election was widely reported in the international press a sign of return to the dark ages. Kazimierz Marcynkiewicz, a provincial politician, slightly built and unassuming, could only be a puppet for Kaczynski brothers and the new government was just a bunch of incompetent hicks. And then, in early November, Mrs. Lubinska had a misfortune to give an interview to Financial Times. Mrs Lubinska has a number of insuperable handicaps. First, she comes from a city, whose name is hard to spell, Szczecin. Second, she is plain-spoken. In Szczecin, for instance, in 2002 she went to the shipyard to explain to its workers that the shipyard was a monetary black hole and needed to be restructured. As one can imagine, her speech was not well-received. Naively, she thought that if she could handle hostile workers she could deal with international press. That of course was a mistake. Her comments about Tesco not being necessarily the most welcome of foreign investors in Poland and that joining euro was not a priority for the government were put on the front page of company news of FT and swiftly interpreted by “friendly” media both in Poland and abroad to mean that Poland was now closed to international business. Never mind that her pitch in favour of increasing government effort in support of the new technology was completely overlooked. Or the plain political fact that her statement about Tesco was quite helpful to the minority government which needed Parliament support. The media view about Ms. Lubinska was now cast in iron.

In the meantime, Poland, with Marcinkiewicz in the front line, has successfully negotiated its share of the multi-year EU budget, the Warsaw Stock Exchange had a record run and zloty continued to appreciate (probably too much). But of course actual achievements and practical results could not stand in a way of entrenched opinions. So when on Saturday January 7, a major government reshuffle was announced, with Mrs. Lubinska ceding her seat to another woman Professor, Zita Gilowska, there could only one media conclusion, which was drawn quickly by the same journalist, Jan Cienski, who interviewed Ms. Lubinska for the FT: she was given the boot. This dispatch was filed on Sunday January 8 and published in the Monday edition of FT.

The only, but a rather serious, problem with the dispatch and similar ones published in other newspapers is that things did not happen this way. The reshuffle was made necessary by the resignation from the government of the Treasury Secretary, who quit because of apparent personal improprieties. As government sought his replacement, the name of Mrs. Gilowska came up. Contrary to Ms. Lubinska, (who has no political party affiliation), Ms. Gilowska is a political heavy-weight. Not only she was, until last May, a leading member of PO, but she was the principal author of the economic program of PO. Bringing her into government would be a major political coup for PiS. Mrs. Lubinska is a close friend of Ms. Gilowska and was actively involved in discussions with her. But there was a major quandary. Mrs Gilowska could not be content with a minor post. And finance is her specialty. Therefore, after extensive discussions with her friend, with Kaczynskis and with the Prime Minister, Mrs Lubinski accepted to leave her current post. However, she did not leave the government. She was nominated as a Secretary of State in the Prime Minister’s office. Her nomination was announced on Monday January 8 morning and therefore was missed by FT’s dispatch. To correct what I considered to be misleading information, I sent a letter to the editor and exchanged mails with Cienski. Yet, so far, no correction was published. Why I am not surprised?