Poland needs democrtatic election procedures
Administrator Wednesday, 10 March 2010 14:16
Recently Slawomir Sierakowski, Polish left-wing activist, described in the weekly "Przekroj" our Polish political system as "concrete-fenced" for new entrants. The 4 dominant parties receive state subsidies that allow them for large-scale political campaigns. Their opponents are nearly not visible, or glue their posters illegaly, facing penalties.
It costs at least GBP 1 milion to get leaflets of one of the parties to 36 million of Polish inhabitants. We do not have an election address. In my constituency I was myself with one activist supplying my photocopied leaflets to voters' homes. The four large parties, that inhabit behind the concrete fence of Polish "mainstream politics", have campaign budgets in the range of GBP 20 million, whereas their opponents, that do not receive state subsidies, sometimes have as little as GBP 10 thousand for the whole campaign. It is not possible to get heard. Audiovisual media are closely tighted with ruling parties, there are personal connections. And financial- since it is the 4 dominant subventioned parties that pay, the remaining parties being too poor.
I was recently in Egypt. In the central places I saw the election posters of some local regime, and their opponents had their posters hung up illegally. The same we have in Poland. We have 3 conservative parties and one postcommunist, that recently turned to conservatism when their leader criticised the idea of gay marriages.
I tried to form some sort of Liberal Democrats. I asked one notable free-market economist to write economic policy for this movement, but he refused, stating that there is no possibility for such movement to appear because of the economic barrier that exists. Currently the rulling party runs etatistic policy, it runs dozens of state-owned enterprises, such as airlines or banks, that are headed by politicians. If accused of unbelievably slow privatisation, their leaders speak of "strategic interests" that prohibit them form privatisations.
We do not have professional science in Poland, most of the scientists have to work in private sector to make their living, and science is only their hobby, which results in dramatically low quality of education. Polish best universities rank around 500th place in global rankings, far below Russian or Czech.
I ask to rise awareness of Polish questionnable democracy, that definitely is a facade to disguise foreigners. Political pressure from other nations and global awareness could change it.
Adam Fularz,
Liberal Poland
