Who Rules Poland, Part II
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006Following in the footsteps of Teresa Lubińska (kicked out of the ministry of finance for speaking the unspeakable) comes Stanisława Okularczyk, until recently the deputy minister for agriculture. While down in southern Poland she had the audacity to tell her voters: The Warsaw set is laughing at you. Minister Jurgiel [her boss] does not understand [...]
News v. Opinion
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006From Friday’s Rzeczpospolita, a national daily paper in Poland: A front page article by Marcin Czeka?ski about the detrimental effects of the government’s disarray. It seems that many key posts have not been filled yet. There is no treasury minister, for example. And then this gem: “Privatisation is limping. PiS [the near-winners of the elections] [...]
Lepper vs. O’Rourke
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006My fellow monkey, Shane Barry, is exercised by Irish politician Mary O’Rourke’s “working like blacks” comment. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear: Come to Poland! Listen to these pearls of wisdom from Andrzej Lepper, leader of the Samoobrona party, and a man not long ago considered a political pariah but now moving closer and closer [...]
Who rules Poland? Who do you think?
Saturday, January 7th, 2006No one in their right mind would be interested in the squalid personnel-changes that pass for politics in Poland but the elevation of Zyta Gilowska to minister of finance and deputy prime minister illustrates a few realities about where power lies in Poland that might go some way to reassure those who are worried about [...]
Tragifarce
Monday, January 2nd, 2006The Christmas edition of Polish current affairs magazine Polityka contains a fairly typical look back on the year in photographs. Internationally, the year is sombre to say the least: New Orleans, the London bomb attacks, race riots in Sydney, the earthquake in Kashmir, violence in Iraq… There is no room for levity in the captions. [...]
