Poland
Polish coalition government party fights to avoid domination
Classified Polnews
Warsaw, Poland August 28, 2006. The current Polish government coalition crisis (See http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=41081 A Crisis In The Ruling Coalition concerning the demand by a minority coalition party member, Samoobrona, for the removal of the head of the Polish parliament agricultural committee is not necessarily about the man but more about the position of Samoobrona in Polish politics. Some commentators feel that it is about to be or not to be for Samobrona.
Samoobrona party leader, Andrzej Lepper, owes his position as Deputy Prime Minister to the ruling coalition party Law and Justice. Yesterday, however, Andrzej Lepper stated that it is not Law and Justice that gave his party power, but it is his party that gave Law and Justice power.
The two minority parties who belong to the coalition fear that the Law and Justice Party intends to marginalize them by taking party members from them into the Law and Justice Party. The man who is a visible center of this crisis is Wojciech Mojzesowicz. He is a former member of the Samoobrona party who left the Samoobrona party to join the Law and Justice Party.
The change to the local law election law that is in the approval process allows for forming election blocks to insure that the coalition will maintain its position as the dominant coalition. But as a side effect of the election law, the minority coalition partners will be weakened as compared to the larger party. Having already lost one man to Law and Justice, the impending passage of this law may have goaded Andrzej Lepper into taking his stand now.
Andrzej Lepper said that Law and Justice Party should weigh the importance of one man,Wojciech Mojzesowicz, to the importance of fifty people in his Samoobrona party.
He intends to introduce a resolution to the Polish parliament, which will be supported by at least one opposition party, to have Wojciech Mojzesowicz dismissed from his position.
The Law and Justice Party says that this would be a violation of the coalition agreement because the coalition agreement does not allow the Samoobrona to support any bill proposed by the opposition.
Samoobrona responds that even though the opposition supports the bill, the bill is proposed by Samoobrona so it is not a violation of the coalition agreement.
The parties seem to have taken some very firm positions. The party that blinks first will determine who is the power broker in Poland.
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