Volume 18 - Issue 21, Oct. 13 - 26, 2001
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU
The rout of Solidarity
==============
In keeping with the current trend in Eastern Europe, former
Communists win the elections in Poland and in the process
virtually eliminate the Solidarity Party from the political scene.
JOHN CHERIAN
THE victory of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) in Poland in
the general elections held in the last week of September is in tune
with the current trend in the region. Elections held in the
Baltic republics of Lithuania and Estonia have also resulted
in victories to Centre-Left parties over anti-communist
right-wing parties that had come to power in the aftermath
of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In Poland, the Solidarity Party has been virtually decimated. It
polled around 6 per cent of the votes, which means it will have
no representation in Parliament. The former Communists, now
rechristened the SLD, won 41 per cent of the vote.
The newly elected Prime Minister Leszek Miller. He and President
Alexander Kwasiniewski were instrumental in remoulding the former
Polish
Communist Party into the Democratic Left Alliance.
In Estonia, Arnold Ruutel, former secretary of the Central Committee
of
the Communist Party, has been voted President in the elections which
were
also held towards the end of September. In Lithuania, a coalition of
left parties has been swept to power. Algirdas Brazauskas, a former
head of the Communist Party, is now the Prime Minister and the
most popular politician the country.
Poland's most charismatic politicians today are Alexander
Kwasiniewski and Leszek Miller - both leaders of the Polish
Communist Party during the Soviet era. Kwasiniewski is the President
of the country and is having an extended honeymoon with the
electorate.
The September 23 elections saw Miller become Prime Minister.
Kwasiniewski and Miller were instrumental in remoulding the former
Polish Communist Party into a social democratic organisation. The SLD
has been inspired by Tony Blair's New Labour in the United Kingdom
and the French and German Socialist parties.
All these former Communist leaders have been pragmatic in choosing
their
career options in the post-Soviet era. They gained
considerable experience as specialists and economic managers during
the Communist era. They willingly forsook the Marxist ideology
and embraced market economics after the collapse of socialism. They
are now among the most avid supporters of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) and proponents of full membership for
their countries in the European Union (E.U.). The avowedly
anti-Communist leaders who preceded them failed in managing the
economies
of their countries as they lacked the necessary managerial and
political
skills.
THE Solidarity Party, born out of the Solidarity Resistance movement
of
the 1970s and 1980s, has been devastated by the election results. The
movement, encouraged and funded by the West, particularly by the
American
Central Intelligence Agency and the Vatican, had played a crucial role
in
precipitating the collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe.
Their leader, Lech Walesa, became the President of Poland in 1990
with his party in control of the government (Frontline, December
7, 1990). But the popularity of Solidarity, along with that of its
main supporter the Catholic Church, started waning soon afterwards.
By the early 1990s the former Communists were on the comeback trail.
Walesa was increasingly being perceived as an incompetent and boorish
figure. Solidarity itself soon started splitting into
factions. Corruption scandals involving senior Solidarity
leaders including persons close to Walesa, further dented the image
of the party. Walesa was defeated by Kwasiniewski, the founder of
the SLD, in the presidential election of 1995. The former
electrician made a pathetic attempt to stage a comeback in
the presidential election last year. His popularity rating is now
consistently in the single-digit category.
Former President and Solidarity Party leader Lech Walesa. Solidarity
has
virtually decimated and will not be represented in Parliament.
Before the recent elections, the political front that the
Solidarity Party had set up with the right-wing parties underwent
yet another split. That proved fatal for the anti-communist front.
The Freedom Union, a front led by Bronislav Gerimek, managed to win
only 3 per cent of the votes, which left it unrepresented in
Parliament. Other parties that did reasonably well were the C
Centre-Left Civic Union and the Peasants Party, which won 13
and 10 per cent of the votes respectively.
Before the elections, the SLD was expected to win a comfortable
majority
in Parliament. However, voter apathy caused a low turnout on September
23
with only 46 per cent of Poles casting their votes. Pollsters had
predicted a 52 per cent share of the votes for the Centre-Left. But
eventually the SLD found itself short of an outright majority; it is
now
trying to form an alliance with either of the two Centre-Left
Opposition
parties.
A disconcerting feature of the electoral outcome is that some
extreme-Right and xenophobic parties such as the Law and Justice
Party,
the League of Polish Families and the Self Defence Party, won a
sizable
chunk of votes - each of these got more votes than the Solidarity
Party.
These parties, supported by sections of the Catholic Church, are
against
Poland joining the E.U., and they claim that such a decision would
sound
the death-knell for the country's rural economy and its traditional
way of life. The Peasants Party and the Self Defence Parties have
the influential farmers' lobby behind them. Only about half
the population of Poland is said to be in favour of the country
joining the E.U.
Polish farmers had managed to avoid collectivisation under socialism.
The
majority of the farmers are small landholders. More than half of the
two
million farms consist of less than five hectares each and farming is
labour-intensive. The government wants to undertake reforms in the
agricultural sector in order to increase productivity and put the
country
on an equal footing with other E.U. members. Farmers fear that they
will
end up joining the growing ranks of the unemployed if Poland becomes a
full-fledged E.U. member. Under the Solidarity-led
coalition, unemployment rose to 18 per cent, and economic growth
is predicted to be around 2 per cent this year. A deficit of $ 5
billion is projected in the coming budget.
The SLD led by Miller has also been strongly in favour of Poland
joining
the E.U. Miller is now a strong supporter of the free market and the
NATO
military alliance, of which Poland is a part. To underline his
continuing
support for these policies, Miller has appointed people who have
gained
the confidence of Washington and Brussels to key posts in his
Cabinet.
Marek Belka, the new Finance Minister, is a favourite of
Western financial institutions.
The new Foreign Minister, Wlodzimierz Cimosszewicz, is expected to
guide
Poland into full membership of the E.U. But before that the
new government will have to build a stable coalition. The
anti-E.U. parties will also make a last-ditch attempt to keep the
country out of the E.U. The issue had become a hot potato during
the elections. One of the likely coalition partners of the
Democratic Left is the Peasants Party, which is not too
favourably disposed towards Poland being a part of the E.U.
Miller's priority is to accelerate Poland's entry into the E.U., a
goal he shares with the former Solidarity-led government. The new
Prime Minister will have to chart his course with political astuteness
as Poland is going through one of its worst economic crises since
non-Communists took power in 1990. In order to balance the budget,
Miller may have to launch an austerity drive immediately. He is
also under pressure from the E.U. to hasten the pace of privatisation.
Until last year, state-owned firms accounted for one-third of
the sales of industrial goods and employed one-third of the
industrial workers in the country. Last year the government
estimated that there were 170,000 excess workers. The E.U. wants
Miller to end state subsidies to public sector companies and make
retrenchment of labour easier.
Miller, a former member of the Polish Communist Party's Politburo,
will
now have to prove that he is truly a believer in the free market
economy.
