Poland Political Briefing: Frictions in the Ruling United Right Joanna Ciesielska-Klikowska
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ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 38, No. 1 (PL) March 2021 Poland political briefing: Frictions in the ruling United Right Joanna Ciesielska-Klikowska 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: CHen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 Frictions in the ruling United Right A dozen or so months after winning the parliamentary elections, the United Right, which has been ruling for the second term, is experiencing serious internal problems. In public debates, both politicians and commentators point out that it is “united” only in the name, and currently the coalition partners are more divided than connected. The conflict between the party leaders is undoubtedly exacerbating, but it is difficult to imagine a government collapse. If this happened, only Law and Justice party could enter parliament - the other two parties would probably not even have crossed the electoral threshold. Thus, the stakes related to maintaining the coalition are high. United Right is a right-wing parliamentary club operating in Polish parliament of the 7th and 8th term, associating deputies and senators of political parties Solidarna Polska and Polska Razem. However, nowadays, in the public space, the term “United Right” is often used to describe the entire coalition consisting of Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc, PiS), United Poland (Solidarna Polska) and Agreement (Porozumienie; functioning as Polska Razem until 2017). It was these three parties that ran together in the parliamentary elections in 2015 and repeated it in 2019 - winning together 235 seats in the Sejm (out of 460) in both 2015 and 2019 elections. These three right-wing groups form the ruling coalition. They worked together flawlessly for many years. Not “united” anymore It has been speculated for months, however, that their co-operation is going through a serious crisis, and the coalition is in danger of collapsing as a result. The events of recent weeks may confirm these assumptions. Indeed, the United Right is now mainly concerned with extinguishing internal fires. The long-lasting dispute between Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS) and Zbigniew Ziobro (United Poland), who have been waging a war for a political inheritance after a possible departure of Jarosław Kaczyński (PiS leader) from power, has now been joined by a game for Jarosław Gowin’s Agreement. Gowin’s supporters, in the current government the Minister of Development, Labor and Technology, even suspect that PiS is trying to break up their party. On the other hand, Gowin is accused by PiS for blocking the organisation of presidential elections last spring and regular contacts with the opposition. He is 1 considered the “fifth column” within the coalition that is capable of bursting a row from within. There is clearly a lack of mutual trust in government. When in 2018 and 2019 any politician of the ruling camp was asked what the strength of the United Right was, the most common answer was: “unity”. Today, the answer to the same question is: “diversity”. Politicians underline, that “if we agreed on everything, we would be one party, not three”, indicating that the diversity of opinions is an advantage in this situation. Yet in practice, the only thing that binds the United Right today is the belief that there is no alternative for their governments – conservative politicians are convinced that the possible governments of center/left-wing Civic Coalition, Polska 2050 or the Left party would be disastrous for Poland. As PiS politicians themselves admit “we have entered the highway at the end of which there is only political annihilation”. In fact, PiS leader - and indeed the leader of the country - Jaroslaw Kaczynski, knows that he cannot lead to early elections today, because he would lose them: due to the prevailing and irritating pandemic restrictions, abolished right to abortion, and an endless war between Prime Minister Morawiecki and Minister of Justice Ziobro, who is striving for independence. So this internal war can only go on inside, it cannot spill out beyond the ruling camp. However, it must be explicitly admitted that the most important threats facing the United Right today concern the deteriorating relations between PiS and both smaller coalition partners. This results, for example, in difficulties in adopting strategic reforms, like reform of the judiciary which has been underway for 5 years and is still uncompleted. Also the planned operation of the administrative division of the capital region of Mazovia has not been realized (it is de facto a political maneuver; the administrative separation of the capital city Warsaw from the rest of the region and the creation of a new voivodeship based in Radom - in fact a political stronghold of conservatives). Indeed, PiS coalition partners do not fully believe in the rationale of this project, and even in Kaczynski’s party some people look with a wry eye at the fact that the main beneficiaries of the change would only be influential politicians from Radom (Marek Suski or Adam Bielan). Problems in Agreement Nowadays the greatest uncertainty in the ruling camp is caused by the split in the Agreement. Apparently, this is an internal matter of the party - here its vice-president Adam Bielan and his supporters have openly undermined the leadership of Jarosław Gowin. But the 2 situation has long gotten out of hand. Troubles in the Agreement resonate with relations across the ruling coalition. Today, two different people pretend to be party leaders in Agreement - “alternative” press spokesmen are appointed, it is not known who should appear at the next coalition council, and the expelled activists still feel like party members. Adam Bielan claims that creator and current chairman of Agreement, Jaroslaw Gowin, is not party’s president anymore, because he was not re-elected two years ago. The latter is acknowledged with a shrug and assurances that there is no doubt about his presidency. As a proof, Gowin’s supporters show legal opinions on social media. A large part of Gowin’s supporters believe that Bielan does not act solely on his own initiative. Gowin himself is even convinced that Jarosław Kaczynski has given the green light to the hostile takeover of his party. Nevertheless, it is puzzling why this happened. Since the government reconstruction in September 2020, Gowin has improved his relations with Kaczynski as well as the Prime Minister’s office. However, Kaczynski is also aware of the fact that Gowin, as Minister of Development, Labor and Technology, is now busy saving the economy and forging anti-crisis shields, what puts party matters into the background. So he tooks advantage of the Agreement leader’s moment of inattention. An additional motivation for Kaczynski was the rumour about a meeting between Gowin and Donald Tusk in Berlin, Kaczynski’s greatest political competitor for years. Both politicians deny it, but sometimes the rumour tells more than the truth. Adam Bielan himself claims that he only wants to respect the party’s statute and still insists that he is temporarily the head of the Agreement. Yet, Kaczynski could indeed decide that it is worth playing with the cards he currently has in his hand and try to take revenge on Gowin. Even if it was not possible to take over the smaller coalition partner with Adam Bielan’s hands, the PiS leader still gives Gowin a ferment in his own ranks. Now Gowin (who has most of the party members on his side) is thinking about retaliatory measures. So far, not against the rebels, who are already considered as former members of the party, but against PiS. And these, sooner or later, will lead to new friction in the United Right. It is almost certain that the Agreement will block several laws important for PiS - including the “mandate law” (it provides for the obligation to pay the fine and only then the right to appeal to the court), the law liberalizing the rules of recruitment in the diplomatic service, and the law introducing the so-called “media tax”. However, Gowin does not want to disintegrate the ruling coalition, but rather to achieve independence. For this purpose, he intends to propose his own projects. The effects can be seen in the planned New Polish Deal - an economic recovery plan after the pandemic, which will use the funds from the European Union. 3 The relations between PiS and the second coalition partner, United Poland, are also interesting - both parties have been on the war path since last July, when Zbigniew Ziobro’s party decided that PM Morawiecki failed in EU budget negotiations. Today, United Poland explicitly opposes the state’s energy policy until 2040, it has already announced that it will not vote for the EU reconstruction fund (which means that PiS will have to count on votes of the opposition to adopt the assumptions of the EU budget in parliament) and distances itself from the idea of the “media tax”. This party may also submit a dissenting opinion to the forthcoming New Polish Deal. At the same time, United Poland is eager to come up with proprietary bills that are not agreed with PiS. These are i.a. a bill on freedom of speech on the Internet or a proposal to create perinatal hospices. Conclusions Summing up, it should be said that the political camp in Poland is shaking, but it is unlikely that it will collapse. Regardless of numerous problems, image failures and challenges independent of the rulers (such as pandemic), trust in the politicians of the ruling camp is still relatively high. They are not hampered by the introduced social changes (denial of the abortion right), the increasingly difficult economic situation (many months of shutting down selected sectors of the economy), or changes in the judiciary (repeatedly protested).