Poland
Is the Polish government involved in a political dirty war?
Warsaw, Poland June 24, 2006 - The Polish Minister of Finance, Zyta Gilowska, was dismissed by the Polish Prime Minister as a result of a case being brought before the courts which case claims that the Polish Minister of Finance lied on her vetting statement. Her dismissal raises many questions and one of the main questions that is being asked in Poland is if she was dismissed as a result of a dirty political war.
The the details of the dismissal can be seen at these links. The the details are fairly straightforward. BBC on Gilowska, Bloomberg on Gilowska, http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=38259 Radio Polonia on Gilowska
But there are many questions that are unanswered and hopefully will be answered in the days ahead.
The Polish political party, Law and Justice, that controls the ruling coalition in Poland, has taken an approach that is essentially to make agreements with anyone that it finds convenient or useful and to destroy anyone who opposes it in anyway. To some observers it appears that the Polish Finance Minister may have been too vocal in her views and made a mistake in opposing some of the ideas of the Kaczynski brothers who control the Law and Justice Party, so she must be eliminated.
Zyta Gilowska is a former member of the opposing political party Civic Platform and is well known to the membership of the Civic Platform. Upon her dismissal leader of the Civic Platform, Donald Tusk, said that she was the victim of a dirty political war that it is being waged by the Law and Justice Party. This accusation was immediately met by a response by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice Party, who said that that was a lie.
The dismissal is based on the finding of a new document that seems to indicate that she had some association with the Communist secret services. Why did this document suddenly appear? Was this document planted in her file? Why has she been charged with a vetting lie and not been allowed to even see the document that is the basis of the charge?
Prime Minister Marcinkiewicz appointed a new finance minister to replace Zyta Gilowska and Jaroslaw Kaczynski says he does not know anything about him. How can it be that the Prime Minister would be appointing a critical Minister in his government when the Leader of the political party does not know that person?
Did Zyta Gilowska become inconvenient? She has put forward some tax proposals that the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, did not like. It was reported that Zyta Gilowska threatened to resign if she did not get the support for her tax proposals. Did she make herself inconvenient by refusing to submit to the absolute control of the Kaczynski brothers?
Andrzej Lepper, leader of the political party Samoobrona, has been pressing the government to take control of some of the monetary forces in order to drive the economy in a direction that he seems to desire. The recommendations that he has made have been contra to what Zyta Gilowska seems appropriate. But now that Zyta Gilowska has been dismissed Andrzej Lepper suddenly comes to her defense. If there is anyone who should be glad to see her policies removed from the government it should be Andrzej Lepper. Why has he suddenly come to her defense?
Why is it that the government can tolerate a Deputy Prime Minister who has a criminal record, Andrzej Lepper, but as soon as another Deputy Prime Minister, Zyta Gilowska, is accused of a crime that Deputy Prime Minister is dismissed? Why are differing standards placed at the same level of government?
Zyta Gilowska has a reputation of being outspoken and and a fighter. Will she turn on the government that turned on her? Will the opposition political party Civic Platform use this is an opportunity to attack the Kaczynski brothers?
As one television journalist put it, is her dismissal as a result of a political dirty war or past political affiliations?
And finally, and most importantly, what effect will this dismissal have on Poland?
