20 years of Poland’s Third Republic: Bitterness prevails
Administrator Tuesday, 29 December 2009 19:39
Poland today feasts 20th anniversary of its III Republic. On the 29th of December 1989 the name “Polish Republic” (Rzeczpospolita Polska) was reinstated, as well as the historic coat of arms (crowned eagle) was reintroduced. The constitution was changed- the leading role of communist party was abolished, multi-party system was reinstated.
If summing up the celebrations of Poland’s two decades of independence after 44 years under a regime tightly collaborationg with Soviet occupant, one cannot leave large waves of bitterness unnoticed. Poland’s largest social media website, Salon24, was filled with angry conservatives complaining on the return of “Uklad”.
“Uklad” is Polish word for stew of ex-spooks, officials and tycoons that in the times of Polish systemic transformation got to the power or never lost the ties with power that they earned in times of communism. Critics describe the colour of this informal political lobby as “pink”, i.e. a mixture of communists with some form of conservatism. Nearly every large media group is being counted to the “Uklad”. Its main pillars are media empires of TVN (group mostly controlled by Polish media mogul Mariusz Walter, with dubious political past of a TV journalist backed by regime).
Other such empire is the Agora group that directly benefited from the politically-backed bank loan guarantees and other support for Poland’s first “Solidarity” daily tabloid newspaper called “Wyborcza”. Other media groupings include “Polityka” (media group issuing Poland’s most popular opinion weekly, having a history of collaboration in Communist times).
These media groups together control the majority of Polish more intellectualised dispute in commercial media. They mostly support state capitalism, which turned into crony type of capitalism when political parties started to use public corporations as a reservoir of job offers for their campaign supporters and other cronies. Such large Polish media groups turned back when opposition parties complained on their complete discrimination in political life in Poland.
Bloggers and opposition politicians accuse that it is not possible for ‘non- Uklad’ Political party to enter the Polish diet. Financing rules are such that only parties that reach the hurdle of 3 % of votes can apply for the reinstitution of costs for their campaign. Currently only 4 large parties may count for such subsidy. Their state budget subsidies for the Diet elections amount, depending of the size of the party, between USD 4 and 40 million.
Opposition parties, that base on donations, can count their budgets in tens of thousands of Polish zloty. They are nearly not visible in political campaigns. Critics claim that given such election financing procedures, Polish democracy is a “banana-style” republic run by oligarchs who control funds for election campaigns. They claim it being a fiction, kept alive by media-politics complex.
In the anniversary year a debate rose on the division of powers between prime minister and president of the republic. Political frictions of the early era of Polish Third Republic created a matrix of overlapping prerogatives of the two officials. Such division of powers proved unworkable and it is actually unclear, who actually runs the country, and whom to blame for the standstill in reforms.
Poland economically outperformed its neighbors during the economic crisis of 2009. However, this was preceded by a decade of slow growth, resulting in Poland’s drop to EU third poorest country in GDP per capita. Poland, politically trapped between postcommunists and churchgoers, might fail to improve its position over next decades. Opposition is weak and poor, higher education exists as a “Potiomkin-village”, that does not reach even third-world standards.
Rail infrastructure is so dilapidated that large sections of tracks between two largest agglomerations of this region of Europe, Berlin and Upper Silesia, has been stolen by steel thieves. Only one train connection daily survives, with average speed three times lower than before WW2. Road and rail investment concentrate only on major routes, province being left with run-down roads and dismantled tracks, with social housing turned into Europe’s largest slums. Poland's future look rather gloomy.
Adam Fularz from Zielona Góra, Poland for Merkuriusz World Edition
Tuesday, 29 December 2009