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V i c tor i e s , D e f e at s , R e c on f i g u r at i on s …
The Government Disintegrates
The greatest body blow to the AWS government was the final departure of the UW from
the government in May 2000. Superficially it was triggered by the decision by Buzek to ap-
point a commissioner to run Warsaw Central Council, thus removing control of the coun-
cil from the Freedom Union. This rapidly snowballed into a government-shattering event.
Just two hours before he signed the order to install the commissioner, the prime minister
had assured UW leader Balcerowicz that he would not do so. That was the last straw for
Balcerowicz and the Freedom Union: having totally lost confidence in the integrity of the
prime minister, staying in government would have amounted to moral capitulation. In
return, it was thought, the Freedom Union would distance itself from an unpopular gov-
ernment and re-establish support. In the end it turned out that even this maneuver did not
prevent it from failing to reach parliament in the 2001 elections.
Following the departure of UW from the government, AWS was the only party supporting
the government, and because of the oddities of the Polish constitution, it proved impossible
to remove Buzek as prime minister. Thus the final year was characterized by an atmosphere
of drift and paralysis. Essentially any attempt to radically change the political fortunes of
the government – say by removing Buzek, or engineering a major cabinet reshuffle – would
make it impossible to recover internal political equilibrium within AWS. This was because
the only thing that kept AWS and the government together was a complex web of inter-rela-
tions among individuals, ministers and parties, which would be almost impossible to recon-
struct in any new configuration. Krzaklewski, too, was reluctant to engineer any changes
that would threaten his control over AWS. For him, the issue was now whether he would
maintain control over the rump of AWS after the elections, and prepare for a 2005 elec-
tion as its leader. Any changes now would endanger that plan. For the very same reason,
Krzaklewski made the decision to run for president in October 2000 against the incumbent
Aleksander Kwasniewski. Not to have run would have meant allowing the establishment of
a counter-figure to his authority in AWS, even though by competing in the elections and
suffering a disastrous first-round defeat to Kwasniewski, he finally buried what remaining
authority he had in AWS, forcing his resignation a couple of months later.
To make matters worse, the end of the Buzek government became tainted with a fatal issue
in Polish politics, corruption. One scandal involved the hugely controversial privatization of
the state PZU insurance company, another the choice of the strategic partner for Poland’s
state lottery. A third scandal involved the arrest of the assistant of the deputy defense min-
ister on corruption charges involving military procurements. All these were reported with
much publicity, and further damaged to the reputation and credibility of the center right.
III. Reconfiguration Again. Recovery
for sure. Also Reinvention?
The Seeds of Recovery
Paradoxically it was at this stage that the seeds were sown for the revival of the right just
four years later, in the elections of 2005. Just as it seemed incredible in 1993 to believe
