In response to Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński's recent announcement that he is not interested in running for president, his rival on the right, Zbigniew Ziobro, has stated that he will be seeking to become president in three years' time.

Mr Ziobro, a former justice minister and current head of Solidarity Poland, said that since Mr Kaczyński had “abdicated” his role as a presidential candidate, he could not imagine that the Polish right would be deprived of a conservative with a “realistic” chance of winning the presidency.

An important battle in the war

So does Mr Ziobro have a realistic chance of becoming president in 2015? Today, it seems highly unlikely. Current President Bronisław Komorowski regularly garners approval ratings in the high-sixties and bar any political earthquakes or monumental gaffes looks like a shoo-in for re-election.

Meanwhile, Mr Ziobro is the leader of a group of politicians that decided to quit PiS and form their own party last year. He used to be deputy leader of PiS and many expected him to be Mr Kaczyński's successor.

But right now Solidarna Polska is not even officially a party yet. Its inaugural congress is scheduled to take place this month, but they have no party structures and hardly any money.

However, three years is an eternity in politics and besides, Mr Ziobro is probably not playing to win the presidency but rather to win the battle against Mr Kaczyński for supremacy on Poland's right.

With Mr Kaczyński having stated publicly that he is not interested in the presidency, he now has a problem.

He can retreat from his words and run anyway, in which case he'd have to go toe-to-toe with his former deputy for the conservative vote.

If the PiS leader ends up getting fewer votes than Mr Ziobro in the first round of voting, his status as the leader of the right could be irreparably damaged.

If, however, he keeps to his word and doesn't run then he will have to look for another candidate from within PiS who could take on Mr Ziobro in the election.

The problem is that PiS doesn't have many other politicians who appear even remotely presidential. Such personalities have either all been kicked out of the party by Mr Kaczyński or died in the 2010 Smolensk plane catastrophe in which then-President Lech Kaczyński, Jarosław's twin brother, perished.

Just one star

Today's PiS is like the Ukraine national soccer side, it has one aging star (Andriy Shevchenko) while the rest of the team struggle.

And so a weak PiS presidential candidate would give Mr Ziobro the opportunity to shine in the campaign and boost his leadership credentials among conservatives. Whichever way one looks at it, come 2015 Mr Kaczyński will have a bit of a dilemma.

Mr Ziobro also knows that in the long-term battle for supremacy on the right in Poland, age is on his side. He is 42 while the current PiS leader is twenty years older.

If Zbigniew Ziobro is able to shine in the forthcoming presidential campaign, then it will be much easier for him to convince Polish conservative voters that he is the future of the right and that Mr Kaczyński's time is up.

Journalists love quotable politicians, especially the kind who give them single-sentence sound bytes they can use as ready-made headlines. The more controversial the quote, the better. Of course, it's bigger news if the quote is from an important politician who actually influences the course of events. No one really cares what a back-bencher thinks or says.

But top politicians are usually very guarded with their words and it's difficult to get them to go on record as saying something that will make people's eyes pop. But that's not been the case with Jarosław Kaczyński. The leader of Poland's biggest opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), has long been a goldmine for Polish journalists in the hunt for a memorable line.

Keep talking

When the leader of the biggest opposition party says that Poland is a Russian-German condominium, that the death penalty should be reinstated, that Prime Minister Donald Tusk is more or less a bus-boy for Angela Merkel, then that's news.

This has been great for Mr Tusk and his Civic Platform (PO) party. As long as journalists focused on Mr Kaczyński's often outrageous and outlandish statements, nobody was paying attention to the PO-led government's shortfalls. For the media, it was all about quoting Mr Kaczyński, which in turn encouraged everyone else to comment on the PiS leader's latest controversial statement.

Golden silence

But in recent weeks, Mr Kaczyński has remained largely silent and when he has spoken up, he hasn't said anything remotely memorable. The media needs news, so if Mr Kaczyński is not supplying it the next most attractive thing is to criticize the ruling government, which is always guaranteed to attract a reader or two.

Donald Tusk's best bet now would be to try to provoke the irritable PiS leader into making a verbal slip-up, so that the political headlines are not dominated by PO's own failings. Mr Kaczyński's best bet, meanwhile, would be to remain largely silent, forcing the media to keep its focus on Mr Tusk's government. In this case Mr Kaczyński's silence would be truly golden for him and his party.

 

 

Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his ruling Civic Platform (PO) party have been taking a hammering in the polls recently.

A February TNS OBOP survey indicates that 70 percent of Poles now disapprove of the way the government is running the country while only 23 percent think it is doing a good job.

Meanwhile, Mr Tusk himself has a job-approval rating of just 28 percent, the lowest since he arrived in office.

The government has been strongly criticized in the media for the confusion surrounding a prescription-drug reform implemented in January this year, for initially supporting the highly-unpopular ACTA treaty and for controversy regarding the newly-built zł.2 billion National Stadium, which is said to fall short of the required standard in several respects.

The PM's proposal to increase the retirement age to 67 for both men and women has understandably not won him many friends either.

Mediocre competition

In a competitive political environment, the ruling party's slip-ups would have caused it to lose a considerable amount of ground to its rivals. But Poland's political scene is far from competitive.

Even though many have started to lose faith in PO, they are by no means turning to the biggest opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), which is simply too conservative, too nationalistic and too aesthetically unpalatable for the majority of Poles.

According to recent voter surveys, a few Poles seem to be turning to the other parliamentary opposition parties, namely the leftist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and Palikot's Movement (RP).

But those parties are likewise incapable of wooing over anything close to a majority of voters.

SLD, which ruled Poland between 2001-2005 is mainly remembered for the corruption scandals which plagued the country during its time in office. The party has not managed to recover since then and is still not considered trustworthy and credible by most Poles.

RP, meanwhile, is led by the often irritating, narcissistic Janusz Palikot, who, while supported by some 12-15 percent of Poles, has the largest negative electorate (45 percent) after PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

Mr Palikot is a nihilist, ready to say or do anything just to be at the center of attention, and most Poles simply don't take him very seriously.

RP's mix of very socially and economically liberal views are also unlikely to attract a huge number of Poles.

A monopoly

All this means that despite all the disappointment and frustration many Poles feel with PO, they simply don't see any alternative to the current ruling party and its leader Donald Tusk.

What's worse, PO politicians are perfectly aware of this and thus the criticism they are currently receiving is unlikely to make them step up their game as it would if they had serious political rivals. Only the PM himself is capable of jolting his ministers into better performances.

Journalists and political observers can criticize, lament and lambaste all they want but the truth of the matter is that in the end, PO can still turn around and say “Ok, we're useless, but so what?” And honestly speaking, it's difficult to respond to that.

 

 

The latest polls clearly show that the ruling Civic Platform (PO) party has been seriously damaged by the mistakes it has made since the beginning of 2012.

A February SMG KRC poll has PO with 27 percent support, down 6 percentage points from January. The opposition Law and Justice (PiS) polled at 23 percent (+1).

Third was Palikot's Movement (RP) with 17 percent (+3) followed by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) with 10 percent support (+2) and the junior coalition partner the Polish Peoples' Party (PSL) with 6 percent support (-3).

A TNS OBOP poll, also carried out in February, was even more negative for PO, putting support for that party at 28 percent (9 percentage points less than in January), with PiS snapping at their heels with 26 (+4) percent.

Three times unlucky

PO has suffered three PR catastrophes this year. The first was the poorly-executed and controversial prescription-drugs reform which came into force on January 1 this year, arousing anger, frustration and confusion among doctors, pharmacists and patients alike. The fiasco was well-publicized and was a terrible start to the year for the ruling party.

Then came the ACTA treaty palaver, as internet users from across the country protested against what they perceive to be a bill that will introduce too many restrictions on the internet. Here, the loudest protests came from a group which has for years been a key electorate for PO – the urban youth.

The latest problem for the government is the chaos surrounding the opening of the newly-built National Stadium in Warsaw. A fixture that was supposed to officially inaugurate the stadium has been postponed several times. There are complaints that not everything is up to standard in the stadium, which cost zł.2 billion to build.

Knowledge gap

Sports Minister Joanna Mucha has been derided in the press recently for exhibiting a rather limited knowledge of the field she is supposed to be overseeing. She recently asked publicly who had “decided on” the two soccer teams that were due to play in Poland's Supercup.

Journalists had to point out to the minister that it is the Ekstraklasa league winner and the Polish cup winner that play for the Supercup, rather than teams that had been “decided” by someone.

All these events have served to seriously dent the image PO has so carefully cultivated in recent years – namely that it is a party of highly-competent, knowledgeable professionals.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who openly admits to valuing pragmatism over ideology, has had one simple message for Poles in recent years: That while PO politicians may not be the stuff of voters' dreams, and may not be statesmen or outstanding individuals, they are pragmatic and much more competent and professional than any of their political opponents.

Up until now, a large number of Poles have bought into PO's narrative, but in recent weeks its “professional” image has received a series of heavy blows.

The real cause of PO's problems

But there is a more important explanation as to why PO is getting so much bad press these days. It's because the “PiS vaccine” is starting to wear off.

It is no secret that the majority of the opinion-forming media in Poland are dead set against the idea of the biggest opposition party, the conservative and nationalistic PiS, coming back to power.

The mere thought of Jarosław Kaczyński's party achieving this is anathema to much of Poland's cultural and business elite.

And so while there was a parliamentary election on the horizon and even a slight possibility that PiS might regain power, criticism of PO was muted in many Polish media outlets.

The notion that “criticizing PO only strengthens PiS” was verbalized by some well-known publicists as a valid reason to refrain from criticizing the ruling party and focus instead on hammering away at PiS.

This process is what one PO-friendly publicist has described as “injecting the public with the PiS vaccine.”

But right now, there are no elections for at least three years and the prospect of a PiS return to power now seems so distant and abstract that it can no longer serve as a means of rallying the troops for the ruling party.

Gloves are off

That's also why the gloves are off, at least for now, regarding the media's attitude towards PO.

Frustrations about the ruling party, once discussed only within journalistic circles, are now being formulated in newspapers, on TV and on the radio. The effects of this are evident in the recent polls.

Prime Minister Tusk can react in one of two ways.

He can decide that his government and party need to be jolted into action, and bring out the whip.

Or he can say to himself “what the hell? ... let the establishment media make all the noise they want … they still don't have any alternative to PO, so when election time comes again, they'll be the ones scrambling to improve our image with the public and bringing out that PiS vaccine once again.”

It would be much better if Mr Tusk were to choose the first option as his ministers, in an effort to keep their jobs, would be likely to make fewer mistakes and govern more efficiently.

But if the PM chooses to wave away the criticism currently targetted at his government, then his ministers will continue to be complacent due to the lack of pressure from above. And the mistakes will continue.

 

 

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has decided that Poland will join a European fiscal pact with 24 other EU countries, despite some of Poland's main demands not being met at a summit in Brussels on Monday.

“[The agreement] does not satisfy us 100 percent but we have decided to sign the pact,” Mr Tusk announced after the meeting of EU leaders.

Poland went into the summit demanding that it be included in all euro-zone summits, something which France in particular was opposed to, according to most reports.

The compromise agreement now states that there will be two types of euro summits. The first will concern coordination of economic policy in the euro zone, for example regarding bailout funds. These will be attended only by the euro 17.

But for summits on other matters such as the implementation of the fiscal pact itself or competition issues, non-euro members will be invited.

Right choice

Poland is right to join the fiscal union on these terms, but not because it is a great idea or because it will “save” Europe.

Indeed, the pact does not include a single fiscal restriction that does not already exist in current EU treaties. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, faced with a public that often feels disdain at German taxpayer money being used to bail out Greece, just needed to be able to flash a fresh document at home, showing that other countries will now have to be more careful about their spending habits.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja even went as far as to tell reporters that the document is “at best unnecessary and at worst damaging.”

“We are working on it because Berlin needs it in its domestic politics,” he said.

But all that is irrelevant from the point of view of Poland's interests in the EU. What Poland needs is to be as large a part of the European decision-making process as it possibly can, but without forgetting its place. Those in Poland who rail against German domination and agreements being signed to please Berlin seem to forget who has been paying the bills recently.

He who pays the piper …

If Poland were contributing hundreds of billions of euro towards bailing out financially troubled European countries, then its needs and proposals would have serious traction as well. But right now, Poland is still a net receiver of EU funds and a lot of that money comes from the German taxpayer – making staying on the good side of Germany a key plank of Poland's foreign policy.