Three Monkeys Online - the free current affairs & arts magazine

In yesterday’s entry I forgot to mention the huff that president Kaczyński disappeared into after Tusk’s victory. Apparently, before the wheels of government could be set again in motion, Tusk – like it or not, the people’s choice – had to apologise to the president for all the nasty things he said. Like for instance, referring to “the Kaczyński brothers.” But they are brothers… Yesterday was the first day of the new parliament and it too was marked by PiS’s petty spitefulness. Ziobro suggested that the proposed marshal of the Sejm had “questions to answer.” What those questions were, alas, we do not know, since no one in his party had the guts to ask them. The important thing was to smear the new guy and get a whispering campaign going good and early against him.

But all of that is behind us now as golden age of PO-PSL politics, flawless and incorrupt, with the interests only of the nation at heart, opens up before us. Since the subject of politics is therefore closed for the next four years or so I turn to Nabokov, a worthy adversary, but in this case an ally. He believes that before generalisation must come attention to detail.

No, not really. He is bitter to the end. He is claiming that a judge’s decision to force a couple of PiS-sympathetic journalists to appear in court in a libel case is evidence that the new rulers of Poland are in cahoots with the judiciary to do down PiS. I know, I know it doesn’t make sense. Meanwhile the soon-to-be-ex-minister for defence appears to believe that bad news from Iraq should be censored: he took Gazeta Wyborcza to task for reporting the death of a Polish soldier there before the man’s family had been informed. The newspaper did not release the man’s name, in case you were wondering. They merely reported what had happened. The same soon-to-be-ex-minister for defence is putting it about that the soon-to-be-future-minister for defence, Radosław Sikorski, is a traitor. Kaczyński claims Sikorski is anti-American - apparently because he had the cheek to actually try to negotiate favourable terms about the missile defence system that America - sorry, Poland, wants to build here. Remember: it was Kaczyński that made Sikorski minister for defence in the not too distant past.

And among Ziobro’s last acts was the appointment of his secret police henchman to a nice feathered nest in the state prosecution service.

Poland has told the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, of which it is a member, that it does not want monitors at its forthcoming general elections. One of the lamer arguments in favour of the general oppression (bugging, lustracja) in PiS-dominated Poland is that “if you are honest you have nothing to fear and nothing to hide.”

Or should we sit chewing our crud in bovine placidity as the police and state prosecution service finally disappears into PiS’s back pocket, soles of their boots and loafers visible to all? Vaclav Havel suggested international observers be sent to monitor elections in Poland when PiS - err, the police - arrested people who were starting to speak out against the party. He was being hysterical, they said: it couldn’t happen here. Now it turns out the police are rounding up opposition activists in connection with alleged election campaign financing irregularities going back two years. Their “investigation” has been going on for nine months but it was felt in ruling State Prosecution/Police/PiS circles that now, coincidentally just before an election, was a good time to move up a gear and begin the mass interrogations. Even right wing law’n'order type Ludwik Dorn is embarrassed, and has suggested the cops ease off.

The best thing by far on Polish TV right now - better even than the not-bad-for-Poland Szymon Majewski Show - is PiS’s childishly crude and hilariously inept party political broadcast. The theme is corruption, of course, the only tune PiS knows, and it contrasts two Polands - that of “not long ago” and the Poland of today. In the first half we see a bunch of fat cats (villas, swanky cars, improbably fat and smoky cigars) exchanging briefcases full of cash for contracts: one of them says to the other “now all we have to do is bribe the opposition.” In the second we see panic, fear and the same fat cats swearing (it’s bleeped) into their mobile phones “[minister for justice] Ziobro’s not on the take!”

Have you spotted the flaw? Who the hell bribes the opposition? It’s the ruling party that counts. Also, who were the opposition in the Poland of “not long ago” portrayed in the ad? Why, the Kaczyńskites, that’s who.

One opinion poll puts the ruling regime ahead. Another, conducted a day ot two later puts rivals PO ahead by a good 8 points.

The atmosphere of oppression - for some, of course, it’s more tangible than any “atmosphere” - has given ruling regime PiS quite a boost in the opinion polls. PiS has gained 8 points and PO lost 6.

A coalition government for Poland has finally been agreed. This time it even has a majority, as the LPR (League of Polish Families) got onside when (because?) an extra three ministries were created to ensure jobs for the boys - errr, a meaningful input from the coalition partners into matters of national policy. Thus, Roman Giertych, chief of the LPR (who had been sidelined in coalition negotiations not two weeks ago) is now minister for education. The “liberal” media is sniffy. Gazeta Wyborcza (6/5/06) writes:

Never before in the [17 year] history of the third Polish Republic has the minister for education been so ostentatiously devoid of qualifications.

There are many reasons to dislike Giertych - an odious man who took the trouble to remind his wife’s university examiner that she was married to him - but to complain that the new minister is “unqualified” shows a basic misunderstanding of democracy. Should only teachers be allowed to be ministers for education? Bankers - ministers for finance? Perhaps the ministry for justice should be reserved for a cop and a squaddie should be the minister for defence. Is “being elected” not qualification enough for public office?

Gazeta Wyborcza has shown a tendency of late to go overboard, weakening otherwise valid criticism. For example, on Friday 5th of May the front page news was that lots of members of Samoobrona (now in government) were bankrupt. The first sentence runs:

Although Samoobrona has 50 million zloties in its party account from loans, the budget subvention, and members’ subscriptions, its leading politicians, who have just taken power, are drowning in debt.

Is the paper trying to suggest that Samoobrona should dip into its subvention and subscriptions to dig its deputies out of financial holes? Can you imagine the squawking that would arouse?

If I were a partisan journalist, dedicated to turning public opinion against a party I did not like (not that I am for a minute suggesting the GW’s journalists are anything but strictly impartial), I’m not sure I would follow this strategy: everyone secretly loves a cad and a bounder and in Poland many people will identify with politicians who have money problems. Samoobrona claims, after all, to be sticking up for the little guy who has been steamrolled by the big bad (western) banks. And indeed, one deputy - clearly cuter than the Wyborcza journalists - simply says he lost track of his debts ten years ago, while others blame unscrupulous businessmen for their woes. The newspaper presents this as a damning indictment of Samoobrona. Many supporters will see it as evidence that Samoobrona are “our kind of guys.”

You have to hand it to Gazeta Wyborcza ’s pictures editor. Wojciech Olku?nik’s photographs in today’s paper of Andrzej Lepper as he slides his way into the job of deputy prime minister do much more to convey the newspaper’s disgust than the tedious and tendentious comment articles accompanying the news that Lepper’s Samoobrona party has signed an opening coalition agreement with PiS (Law and “Justice”).

Here’s a link to the front page picture. Unfortunately, the one on page four is not online.