The True
Opposition Leader
Polish Political Parties Unite Against Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski
Warsaw, Poland 15 November, 2007 Event's in the Polish Parliament yesterday highlighted how Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski has united all the political parties in the Parliament to work together against him. In a vote on a key Parliamentary committee that left him on the sidelines, parties of diverse backgrounds united to put him down.
There are currently only four parties in the Polish Parliament. There are three parties that are against Kaczynski's Law And Justice Party (PIS) and, standing as the only "true opposition", PIS. The three parties against PIS have such diverse political backgrounds that one would not normally expect them to work together.
The SLD, a definite leftist party, has its history in the old Communist Party. The PSL is a socialist farmers' party. And the ruling coalition party, Civic Platform (PO), has its history in the Solidarity movement, and is, relatively speaking, economically liberal.
The distance in philosophy between the SLD and PO is so great that PO has repeatedly rejected discussions with them concerning the Government Coalition.
PO and PSL have constituencies so different, socialist farmers as compared to free market business people, that cooperation would seem out of the question. But in spite of their differences, over the past couple years, PSL and PO have been working together in regional governments. They have learned that they can exist together.
So when PO found it needed a coalition partner at the national level, in spite of cultural and ideological differences, it was, because of their history, able to come to agreement with PSL fairly quickly.
And Jaroslaw Kaczynski made it easier for them to join forces.
Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak emphasized Kaczynski's effect on the coalition's formation when he said, "One could say that rather ironically Jaroslaw Kaczynski is like Nokia: connecting people."
How well he united people against him was glaringly visible yesterday in the vote to establish the makeup of the Parliamentary Special Services Committee that oversees the Secret Services.
The issue that arose was to how many members there would be on the Committee. Kaczynski wanted seven members made up of three from the PO, two from PIS and one each from PSL and SLD.
His position was that his party was the only "true opposition" party in the Parliament and because it had the second largest number of seats in the Parliament, it should have two members.
But the other parties in the Parliament were of the opinion that the Committee should be made up of five people. They wanted two from PO and one from each of the others.
When the matter was put to vote, PO, PSL and SLD united against Kaczynski. The Committee will have places for five people.
But since Kaczynski lost the vote, he decided that his party will not participate and will not provide a member.
In the discussion following the vote, SLD leader Wojciech Olejniczak said that in spite of what Kaczynski said about not participating, some of the PIS members would. They will participate in hearings when they are brought before the Committee to testify about some activities in which PIS was involved.
Speaker of the Sejm Komorowski, (PO), interrupted Olejniczak as he was speaking and told him that he should not say things like that.
But in spite of not being politically correct, Olejniczak was correct on the facts. PIS members will testify against a front that their leader unified.
