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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 Post-Communist Revival
Although the catastrophic defeat of AWS and UW in the September 2001 elections was
largely of their own making (both failed to pass the five percent threshold for parliament,
while SLD obtained 41% of the popular vote), the defeat would not have been so great had
it not been for the efforts of the leader of the Democratic Left Alliance, Leszek Miller. In
the aftermath of the 1997 elections, SLD morale was at an all-time low, especially among
regional activists who had been convinced right up to the last moment that they had the
elections in the bag. Miller’s first step was to transform the SLD from a loose alliance of
left-wing parties and groups into a single party with him at the helm. The next step was
then to focus on winning elections. Miller recognized that by bringing to a new party a
more youthful leadership less tainted by the past, and launching a policy debate about the
role of the left in a capitalist and Catholic Poland, he could be the driving force behind
their re-emergence in the 2001 elections.
Miller and SLD leaders realized that the first task should be to stabilize its support. This
was achieved through a political stance that reassured core supporters and voters that the
SLD remained in fighting mood and was not reneging on its anti-Solidarity and anti-AWS
principles. With their core support secure, Miller and his colleagues moved onto stage
two, namely extending SLD influence back towards the center ground which had assured
it of electoral victory in 1993, and securing the presidency for former SLD leader Alek-
sander Kwaśniewski in 1995. It was in the loyalties of this small middle strand of voters on
which parliamentary success depended in the 2001 parliamentary elections, as well as in
the reelection campaign of SLD’s historical leader, President Kwaśniewski. By now posing
as the party of reasonableness and compromise, Miller was able to paint AWS as the ag-
gressive force in Polish politics, unwilling to compromise for “the good of the country.”
A New Generation of the Right
The disintegration of the AWS coalition is now seen by many as a positive development
for Polish politics. It was difficult to envisage Polish voters being prepared yet again, say in
2005, to vote back into office the same politicians who so decidedly lost their trust. Yet the
Polish right was historically immune to any serious changes of leadership, with the same
failed faces being rotated through successive parties and factions. Political annihilation
through electoral defeat may have been the only method of forcing through a change of
political style and leadership.
Secondly, it was increasingly clear that a right dominated by the ethos of the Solidarity
trade union would be incapable of generating the policies that Poland would increasingly
require in years to come. The priorities of the 21
st
century are to push forward economic
policies that will allow Poland to compete in increasingly demanding international mar-
kets, and that cannot be done without lower taxes, more flexible labor markets, and less
state intervention in the economy – everything to which Solidarity was opposed. In ret-
rospect it is clear that the 1997-2001 Buzek government was center-right in name only,
at least as far as economic policy was concerned. AWS had come to power with a broad
agenda of social engineering, through legislation that essentially set up an extensive wel-
fare state that will take a heroic effort to dismantle.
