Poland
Radical farmers' party dominates Polish politics
Classified Polnews
Warsaw, Poland April 24, 2006 The Polish political party Samoobrona has turned the tables on the ruling Law and Justice Party government and is now demanding that its terms be met and if those terms are not met, it will force new elections.
The current minority government of Poland is made up of members of the Polish political party Law and Justice. Since the Polish elections of 2005 the Law and Justice Party has been attempting to form a coalition, or some other arrangement, that will allow it to get a majority voting position in the Polish parliament.
The tactics used by the Law and Justice Party to get control of minority parties to form a coalition government on their terms have consisted of a series of threats of new elections if the minority parties did not come to heel. Because the minority parties would most probably be eliminated from the Polish parliament if new elections were held, the minority parties have been prone to work with the Law and Justice Party. But the Law and Justice Party has cried wolf so many times that the wolves have learned how to make threats themselves.
The coalition talks drone on and on with no visible results or progress. The Law and Justice Party said that a coalition would be formed prior to Easter. But that did not happen. The signing of a coalition agreement has been delayed week to week and the latest projection is that a coalition agreement should be signed this Friday. But confusion continues to reign in the coalition talks.
Andrzej Lepper, leader of the political party Samoobrona, has been reading the public opinion polls that show that the Law and Justice Party is losing its position to the opposition party Civic Platform. Were new elections to be held now the Law and Justice Party would be likely to lose a number of seats that it has in the pact Polish Sejm. That has given Andrzej Lepper a lever that he is not embarrassed to use.
Now Andrzej Lepper has demanded that the coalition agreement be signed this week or the Law and Justice Party government will be brought down and new elections held. Implicit in this demand is, of course, the demand that the conditions that he set for the signing of the coalition agreement be agreed to.
So it is now Andrzej Lepper who is in a position to dictate. And there is no doubt, given Andrzej Lepper ' s character, that he will take advantage of his position and press the Law and Justice Party to get the terms that he wants.
With his new-found knowledge of his position and the dropping political support by the Polish public for the Law and Justice Party, if a coalition agreement is signed Andrzej Lepper will be in a very strong position within the Polish government. It is very possible that he will set the direction of the government more than the Law and Justice Party now thinks conceivable.
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