Poland

Polish Government Crisis Management

The Polish government’s ruling party has been very successful in creating a constant stream of crisis that it uses as pretext to consolidate control.

It has craftily worked the weaker popular parties around its finger to the point where they have effectively given up any power that they may have had in order to stay in the parliament. And it has been intimidating the press, sometimes not so subtlety.

The ruling political party, PIS, holds a minority position in the Polish parliament. Many people who voted for them have said that they expected PIS to enter a coalition with the next most popular party, PO. PIS, however, has acted to maintain its minority position by rejecting a coalition with PO. PIS blames PO for not entering the coalition. And, of course, PO, gives its reasons for not agreeing to the terms of coalition.

PIS went on to use the budget as a lever to get two other minority parties under their control. Since the President of Poland is the twin brother of the leader of PIS, they worked in concert using the Presidential power to call for new elections if the budget is not approved on time. Since public opinion polls suggested that both of the minority parties in question, LPR and Samobrona, would likely lose many seats in Parliament were new elections to be held, to the point that they may not even make the threshold for a position in Parliament, they were ready to do the bidding of PIS. So under the threat of new elections unless LPR and Samobrona signed a so called stabilization pact, PIS emasculated these parties.

Though the stabilization pact was signed, PIS had to manufacture a new crisis when PO recognized that the stabilization pact could be used against PIS so PO stated that it would submit the tax proposal that PIS had put forth during the election campaign. Once again, in a crisis, PIS levered LPR and Samobrona into a change in the stabilization pact that would counter the PO submission by having the President suddenly announce that he would make a decision on new Parliamentary elections on the same day that the amendments to the stabilization pact were submitted.

LPR and Samobrona buckled, the President announced no elections and the crisis is supposed to have passed.

But has it. Some now expect the President to find a new legal opinion that will give him the option of calling for new elections within 14 days after 19 February. That will allow PIS to create a new crisis so that they can manage the minority parties once again.

  Classified Polnews