The Forthcoming Death of Poland's Fourth Republic?

international | politics / elections | news report Monday August 13, 2007 12:48 by Damien Moran

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Roman Giertych - Leader of the Far-Right LPR - Their elderly female followers stand out by wearing Mohair hats

Many Irish people now either live or work alongside Polish people. An estimated 200,000 or so who have come from all over Poland for better wages and lifestyles, especially since their country's accession to the EU in May '04. So I hope the following article will help Irish readers gain some insight into the recent political shenanigans in Poland and the upcoming elections which will probably take place at the end of October this year, two years earlier than expected. It may also help put your curiosity about Polish election posters, which are sure to spring up throughout Ireland in the coming weeks, into some context and give you an idea about the various parties involved in the Polish political system. So here's a little starter for a coffee break conversation with your Polish colleague tomorrow morning.

End of the Right-Wing Coalition
Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc) party have decided to go it alone, banishing the far-right wing League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodziny) and radical populists Self-Defence (Samobroona). The right-wing government, were elected in 2004 after ousting the scandal-riddled post-communist party, Social Democratic Alliance (Sojusz Lewica Demokracja), from power on an anti-corruption ticket. The Law and Justice party is headed by the controversial Jaroslaw Kaczynski, brother of the president, Lech Kaczynski - both famous child actors in Poland after starring in a 1962 film heavily promoted by Communist propaganda masters , 'The two who stole the moon.' Their father was a soldier in the Home Army or Armia Krajowa (AK) resistance to the Nazis in World War II and their mother was a philologist in the Polish Academy of Sciences. They were both members of Solidarnosc Trade Union in the 80's, Lech after his internment under the Communist martial law period of General Jaruzelski.

Their authoritarian form of rule, Euro-scepticism, sychophantic attitude to the Bush administration, homophobic policies and links to the powerful anti-semitic Redemptorist priest and media mogul, Fr. Tadeusz Rydzyk, have led to mainly bad publicity in the international press and decreasing support amongst the Polish electorate due to people growing tired of their policies which have failed to deliver sufficiently on issues like increasing wages for public service sector workers and health/education/civil service sector reform.
The leader of the former farmer's trade union turned Self-Defence parliamentary party, Andrzej Lepper, was fired from his posts of Minister for Agriculture and Deputy Prime Minister last month for his purported involvement in a land corruption deal. But the rest of this article will concentrate on the most dangerous and thankfully now former member of the crisis-hit coalition, the quasi-fascist League of Polish Families.
http://www.thenews.pl/archives/1007-Polands-ruling-part....html

Roman Giertych - out on his ear at last
Whatever one makes of the breakup of the Polish gvt. and the probability of an equally crap one replacing it, I am personally rejoicing about the fact that Roman Giertych, quasi-fascist Minister for Education, will be given the boot today by the lead coalition gvt. partner Law and Justice henchmen, 'either ya love them or hate them,' the Kaczynski twins.

Giertych, from the ultra right-wing national conservative League of Polish Families, has been a real pain in the ass for progressive and sane people since taking up his post under the unstable coalition gvt. of Law and Justice and the radical populists of Self-Defence. From trying to get Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Gombrowicz kicked off the school reading lists, which he wanted solely replaced with ultra-nationalist and Catholic authors; to his belief that Darwin totally sucks and that a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis rules above else when trying to understand the human story, the radical politician and his party members have shocked and awed Europe with their diabolical beliefs. One of the most recent and most ridiculous was that Tinky-Winky, from the popular children's Teletubbies show, was a closet homosexual infecting children's minds by portraying homosexual symbols (a violet handbag) in a sophisticated plot to convert the junior masses towards the hell-bound Kingdom of Gayness.

More nutty views of LPR
He alongside his deputies and followers are well-known as holding extreme views of hatred towards homosexuality. I deliberately have not called him homophobic here because I believe this belittles the extremist perspectives held and deeds carried out to repress people of minority sexual orientations by their cadres. As the re-initiator of the inter-war All Polish Youth brigade of thugs after the fall of Communism, Giertych attempted to start an organisation that would lead Poland back to a purported age of Polish patriotism and nationalism. The authoritarian and intolerant nature of this youth wing with its strong neo-nazi connections manifested through anti-semitic and xenophobic rhetoric and actions, and the political party that he started in 2001, LPR, which got 8% of the vote in general elections in that same year, have had their most successful period in the past couple of years with high profile posts in government.

Support from the Polish public
They got a similar percentage of votes in the 2005 elections, but their seat numbers fell from 38 to 34. Recent polls deem their performance in the upcoming October 21st (one date proposed so far) '07 elections to fall again, though they have a tendency to deceive pollsters and rapidly recruit an elderly mainly rural flock to vote for them, egged on by by the worst of the worst in the Catholic church dog collars.

How will the 5th Republic look?
One can only hope that they will get less than 5% support from the electorate which would rule them out from entering any potential right wing government. So the Fourth Republic may well be plummeting of a hill top where there is no safety net underneath. The 33% support which the centre-right Civic Platform strongly neo-liberal party may expect to gain in the forthcoming elections will probably see them as power-brokers for th Fifth Republic. Their position on sending a tenth contingent to Iraq in early 2008 will surely rest on potential economic gains. Whether they will ruffle U.S. feathers as regards the proposed U.S. missile Defence system is unlikely. But most importantly for ordinary Poles will be if they can prevent the ever-increasing emigration of the youngest and brightest from all parts of the country to countries that offer better wages and more comfortable lifestyles.

The fact that Poland in top of the list when it comes to attracting investment out of all the 31 EU countries may be a card they will use to try and repatriate the 2 million or so Poles who have left the country since their accession to the EU in May 2004. The coalition of Lefties and Democrats will remain in opposition again as they struggle to internally reform and root out endemic corruption that was their death-knell in the 2004 elections.

No matter how the elections turn out, one can expect a fierce contest of mud-slinging in the coming weeks as Poland's political elite fight it out to keep their too-well-paid jobs and positions of power and demean the reputations of any one who gets in the their way. Such is the daily business of the string-pullers in modern parliamentary democracies. Polish billboards can expect to see a new 'Boycott the Elections' campaign from anarchists in the coming weeks, but the State and commercial media colloboration with parliamentary pseudo-democrats and dire lack of active citizenship within Polish society will manage to achieve promoting another false alternative to govern above and not for the Polish people. Watch this space - the self-confessed neo-liberals are about to come to power in Poland and the wholesale privatisation of the country will be sped up 100-fold. I suppose it's good news for Irish capitalists hungry to get their hands on lucrative Polish real estate without bureaucratic interferences