By Zoltán Dujisin
PRAGUE, Sep 28 2007 (IPS)

As Poland prepares for early elections Oct. 21, the corruption scandal that brought down the government still poses serious questions on the state of the country’s democracy.

Parliament was dissolved Sep. 7 in a move supported by all political forces and most of the public, following irreconcilable conflicts within the governing coalition of the majority Law and Justice (PiS) party and the two minority governing parties Self-Defence (SD) and the League of Polish Families (LPF).

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a nationalist conservative promoting economic protectionism, announced the end of the coalition with the extreme-right and populist forces on Aug. 13.

The move came after populist SD Leader Andrzej Lepper had been dismissed from the post of deputy prime minister and agriculture minister on Jul. 9 following suspicions of corruption levelled against him.

The Central Anti-Corruption Office (CBA) had learned that two officials from the agriculture ministry had been bribed to re-zone agricultural land, and instead of initiating an investigation, it arranged a provocation that was thought would have far-reaching implications.

The CBA, which is led by a member of the governing PiS, was hoping Lepper would fall into the trap, but the politician was saved by a leak that was to cause even more controversy.

The government points to then interior minister Janusz Kaczmarek as the source of the leak, and has since relieved him of his post, interrogated him twice and even detained him shortly.

After his dismissal, Kaczmarek, who considers himself a “scapegoat”, revealed that his former cabinet regularly wire-taps editorial offices and collects incriminating evidence on opposition politicians.

Perhaps not surprisingly, justice minister Jbigniew Ziobro, who says the wiretappings took place but are “legal”, soon threatened several opposition figures with explosive revelations.

The press now expects Ziobro and the governmental machinery to dig dirt on opposition politicians for electoral purposes.

Accusing the government of acting politically, the opposition has demanded a probe into the conduct of the CBA, but the government opposes any such step before the elections, and accuses the opposition of defending its former arch-enemy Lepper.

Lepper, who was one of the opposition’s main targets and was renowned for his populist and controversial statements, is pointing to the authorities’ failure to produce evidence against him as a sign of his innocence.

The intention of the PiS leaders was allegedly to rid their government of Lepper, one of its most problematic partners, while absorbing its traditional electorate, becoming an all encompassing party of the Polish National-Christian right.

“Kaczynski made a political gamble; his plot to get rid of Lepper and take over his votes, and replace the leadership with someone more docile has failed,” Jacek Kucharczyk, a political analyst at the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw told IPS.

“His political choice was either early elections, using his power to influence the outcome, or enter a prolonged period of minority government, with a parliamentary commission investigating his activities with possibly disastrous consequences,” Kucharczyk says.

The main opposition daily Gazeta Wyborcza has been the government’s most outspoken media critic, and in a Jul. 30 commentary, editor-in-chief Adam Michnik warned that Poland was “becoming a country of a creeping coup. Its outcome is meant to be a system that will deprive existing institutions of democratic substance and turn them into a fiction.”

The same paper wrote on Aug. 30 that the reason for several officials’ and Kaczmarek’s arrest, who in the meantime put forward his candidature as prime minister for the extreme right, was the government’s fear that they would reveal compromising information on what it termed “the biggest political scandal in many years.”

Some of these fears are corroborated by Kucharczyk, who claims Kaczynski “still seems to be in control of factors like public television, the prosecutor’s office and intelligence agencies, making the election campaign difficult for the opposition.”

The PiS has attempted to present the minister’s dismissal as proof that it is capable of going against its own allies for the sake of rebuilding a corruption and crime-free Poland.

The PiS was elected in 2005 after promising to struggle unconditionally against corruption and crime in Poland, and many voters appreciate its heavy-handed approach to what they believe is a powerful leftist and liberal elite controlling Poland.

“The situation is as it was in 2005. We have to decide whether we should continue or reject the post-communist system. Do we choose the Poland of solidarity or liberal Poland?” Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in a message to the electorate.

Currently the PiS has more enemies than friends, but it has not excluded any possibilities, and is hoping it will manage to force the liberal PO into a coalition with PiS, with Jaroslaw Kaczynski again as prime minister.

Kucharczyk believes PiS could win, albeit without an absolute majority. “If he comes first, his legitimacy will be stronger, and he will claim he was re-elected by people who approve his handling of politics,” he told IPS. “But it will be very difficult for him to find someone who will want to form a coalition with him.”

Polls show the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) of the twin brothers leading with 35 percent of the vote, which might not suffice to allow it to govern independently.

PiS is closely followed by Donald Tusk’s centre-right and liberal Civic Platform (PO) with 32 percent of vote intentions, and further away stands the social-democratic Left and Democrats (LiD) of Wojciech Olejniczak with 16 percent of the vote in the polls.

PO head Donald Tusk has not excluded any coalition right or leftwards, but insists he won’t accept Kaczynski’s presence in his cabinet.

Even losing the election, PiS would maintain considerable influence in the opposition and above all, by retaining the presidency of Lech Kaczynski for another three years. The President has already warned that he would not hesitate to use his right to veto in case the liberals gained power.

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