Poland
Will Poland be rebuilt or will it be destroyed?
Warsaw, Poland April 26, 2006 one of the goals of the ruling Polish government party Law and Justice chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his brother, the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, is to destroy the system that has run Poland since the changes that occurred in 1989. Their intent is to create a Fourth Republic of Poland. They are currently moving toward on their quest of destruction. But are they really building something solid in place of that which they are destroying?
Since the Law and Justice Party has come to power there have been wholesale replacements of personnel in most of, if not all, of the Polish ministries. The effects of the wholesale replacements are now starting to be seen. And they appear to be having a negative impact on the country.
One of the more visible problems that has occurred because of the replacements is the difficulties that are occurring with the payments to farmers which payments are supervised by a the Ministry of Agriculture. This has received a lot of publicity in the Polish media and has resulted in a motion of no confidencein the Minister of Agriculture being put forth in the Polish parliament. The Minister of Agriculture has been heavily criticized by the political parties SLD and Civic Platform. And the Minister of Agriculture has asked the public prosecutor to bring charges against the people who have criticized him.
But there are other problems that are not receiving that much media attention, yet.
For example the state lottery has been without a chairman for months. It does not even have people on its supervisory board. And revenues have dropped by 20 percent. Employees of the organization say that the drop in revenues is a result of the confusion that has resulted since the election of the Law and Justice Party in 2005.
Even the operation of the Polish parliament has been affected. One of the new members of the Polish political party Civic Platform complained on the television program TVN that nothing was happening in the Polish parliament. Debates and meetings were being delayed constantly because leaders of the Polish government have been totally involved in attempting to put together a coalition.
The Polish government has also been spending a lot of time dividing the existing ministries into smaller ministries. They say that this is to make the administration more efficient and deny that it is being done to create more jobs and positions for the new members of the government coalition to be formed.
This division of the ministries seems to be contrary to the Law and Justice Party election promise to make the government smaller and less expensive. And there is no doubt that the division of ministries and the creation of new administrative organizations will only add new confusion as the new ministries organize themselves.
If a government coalition is formed and the other minority parties are given positions in the ministries, one can expect another wholesale replacement of all personnel in these ministries. How long it will take for these ministries to become administratively stable is not possible to predict. But it definitely will have a further negative impact on the country.
The Polish government has effectively eliminated years of experience and historical perspective from the administrative portions of the government. The Polish administrative agencies are now in start up, again.
And if the to be formed government coalition does not last, it is likely that there will be once again wholesale replacement of all personnel in the administrative agencies.
How much of a setback this will be for Poland is anyone's guess. Eventually things will settle down but will they settle down enough to restore the country to the growth path that it could be on were there stability? And if the Law and Justice Party continues on its destructive quest, how much more damage will be done
