A Question of Press Provocation Or Government Pressure
The Polish government crisis of 13 February, 2005 related to the signing of an amendment to the Stabilization Pact (STAPACT) between the political parties PIS, LPR and Samoobrona was prompted by a question presented on a popular weekly radio political roundtable attended by senior politicians of all Polish political parties.
Poland
On the broadcasts of 12 February, 2005, hosted by the inquisitive Monika Olejnik, it came out that the main opposition party, Civic Platform, was going to submit a budget amendment that was actually the budget that the ruling party PIS had proposed during the election campaign. Civic Platform knew that PIS did not want to have the budget that PIS had promised it would submit voted on. Civic Platform also knew that two signatories of the STAPACT, LPR and Samoobrona, would vote for the budget that had been promised because that budget was a populist budget and would support the populist constituencies of LPR and Samoobrona.
The discussion caused alarm bells to go off at PIS headquarters because under the terms of the STAPACT these two minority parties had full right to vote for a budget, that even though promised by the ruling party to the public in the election campaign only a few months earlier, that was inimical to the ruling parties actual, as compared to promised, plans.
PIS drew up an amendment to the STAPACT that prevented any such votes for that budget by the STAPACT members. Under the sudden threat of new elections to be ordered by his brother (the President of Poland) the leader of the ruling government party got the signatures of the minority parties on his amendment. With his brother having assured control of the minority parties, the President brother announced on TV that there would not be elections.
Zbigniew Wasserman (Zbigniew Wasserman - Minister, Member of Council of Ministers —his Poland is crawling with Russian spies, treacherous plutocrats, ministers conniving with gangsters and communist mafiosi. That’s the kind of Poland Wasserman sees this year, and nothing can convince him he’s wrong. http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/7271/ ) pronounced that the entire crisis was a political provocation by the radio program host Monika Olejnik.
Wasserman, who has been in the news lately for suing a contractor who did not install his hot tub correctly and for perhaps being involved somehow in the comical installation of an overhead gas line to supply gas to the apartment complex in which he lives, became the brunt of jokes and unkind news coverage by the private media. He later backed down saying that he perhaps should have not used those words.
But his comment should be taken seriously. He is the head of special services. He is a man on a mission and one can not expect him to let something like this go.
Were his comments part of the government’s campaign of pressure against critical journalists? Provocation or pressure? Time will tell .
Classified Polnews
