The state election commission registered 16 candidates for the 9th October elections.
In alphabetic order: Marek Borowski, Henryka Bochniarz, Leszek Bubel, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Maciej Giertych, Liwiusz Ilasz, Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw Kalinowski, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Andrzej Lepper, Daniel Podrzycki, Jan Pyszko, Zbigniew Religa, Adam Slomka, Donald Tusk and Stanislaw Tyminski.
Daniel Podrzycki died prior to the poll and Zbigniew Religa, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz and Maciej Giertych withdrew from the race.
Donald Tusk - leader of the Civic Platform (PO) and Lech Kaczynski - mayor of Warsaw and the candidate of Law and Justice (PiS) led in pre-election opinion polls. Other candidates with significant levels of support were heart surgeon, Zbigniew Religa, Self-defence leader, Andrzej Lepper, and Polish Social Democracy (SdPl) leader, Marek Borowski.
According to the constitution, the Polish president has few legislative powers. However, he runs the country’s foreign policy and in this respect Alexander Kwasniewski’s ten year tenure has been regarded as a great success – at least, in the West. In particular, Kwasniewski has been loyalty personified to his post-1989 ally, the United States, by providing the third largest contingent of troops in Iraq and echoing Washington’s disapproval of Putin’s Russia. He also took the leading regional role in bringing the ‘Orange revolutionaries’ to power in Kiev in 2004. As a former Communist youth leader and, in the regime’s dying days, its Sports minister he has a long pedigree of supporting Big Brother. The outgoing president has made no bones about the fact that he would like to be the next UN Secretary General when Kofi Annan retires even though the post should – on past form – rotate to a candidate from the Asian continent.
However, Kwasniewski has not achieved the same level of popularity at home where he is blamed for the negative impact of reforms that have taken place on his watch. Added to which, allegations of corruption haunt both him and his wife Jolanta who, at one time was thought to be his likely successor. The president has always been viewed with suspicion by the church especially after he was captured on film laughing at his state security chief’s mocking parody the late pope John Paul II.
The public was less than enthusiastic about the candidates lined up to succeed him if opinion polls conducted in the run up to the election were to be believed. The two leading contenders Donald Tusk and Lech Kaczynski were both former Solidarity activists. Kaczynski and his twin brother Jarosław had been Wałesa loyalists up to 1990 but later turned on the former president during his turbulent time in office, probably helping to ensure that he wasn’t re-elected in 1995. The Kaczynskis set up a political party, the Centre Alliance which subsequently collapsed, but in 2001, they founded “Law and Justice” (PiS), whose title hinted at its anti-corruption rhetoric and its support for screening of ex-communists and other for their crimes before 1990.
Lech Kaczynski was labelled the ‘right wing’ candidate, a reputation burnished further in the summer of 2005 when he banned a gay pride march in Warsaw. He was even more anti-Russian than Kwasniewski and vowed to try to overturn a pipeline deal concluded between German and Russia that would by pass Poland and deprive it of valuable transit revenues. He promised an even closer alliance with the US – if such a thing was possible - while adopting a cooler, but cooperative, relationship with the EU. Since his election he has been hyped as the Church’s favoured candidate but the latter only threw its support behind him after the League of Polish Families’ leader, Maciej Giertych, withdrew from the race shortly before the first round of voting on 9th October. PiS and Kaczynski also promised to cleanse the political establishment of its remaining Communist hangovers and set up a Truth and Reconciliation commission similar to South Africa’s. Kaczynski’s popularity was stronger in the south and east of the country due to PiS’s promise to support the poor by continuing social benefits.
The Kaczynski twins had courted controversy themselves in the past. In 2001, Polish TV accused the Centre Union party then run by the Kaczynskis - Lech was Poland’s Justice Minister at the time - of receiving $600,000 from the Foreign Debt Servicing Fund (FOZZ).[1] Both Kaczynskis vehemently denied the allegation which was extremely damaging as the FOZZ affair was perhaps the largest financial scandal to hit Poland after the collapse of Communism.
Donald Tusk was portrayed as the more pro-EU, secular liberal candidate. He supported further and more far reaching economic reforms (including accelerated privatizations) and was perceived as the favourite of young, business-orientated Poles. He was allegedly favoured in the west and centre of the country although there are pockets of poverty in these areas to rival anything in the east. On 18th October, Tusk campaigned in the port of Szczecin, on Poland’s Baltic coast where, according to TV Polonia, ”many large enterprises have gone bankrupt … while others have changed ownership with many people losing their jobs. Unemployment in this province is significantly higher than the national average.”[2] Despite his credentials as the ultra-liberal, cost-cutting candidate, Tusk received 42% of the vote in the poverty-stricken city of Szczecin which seems about as probable at face value as Margaret Thatcher coming first in England’s depressed north east when British unemployment was at its height in the early 1980s.
Tusk also put forward plans for a flat tax which alarmed many voters although the media occasionally revealed that the plan was never properly fleshed out or understood by the population at large. He also made a melodramatic visit to neighbouring Belarus to offer support to its allegedly beleaguered Polish minority – both he and Kaczynski vowed to come down hard on Lukashenko’s regime. [see, later in this report]
BHHRG met few Tusk supporters in the north, south and east of the country. However, they suspected that some former Communists and those who might have been associated with the Party ( informers, for example) supported Tusk for fear of ‘exposure’ by a future PiS-led government’s lustration drive. Anti-clerical feeling which is a strong undercurrent in “Catholic Poland” probably also pushed ex-SLD voters into Tusk’s camp since the former Communists have no love for the Church, least of all for seeing its moral teaching enacted by law.
Apart from a very small elite, it is hard to see how such an uncompromising proponent of free market policies as Donald Tusk could get any significant support in a poor country like Poland. Added to which, Tusk came over as a dull performer on the media. However, he had 12 point lead in polls conducted after the first round of the election.
Then, on 11th October, it was rumoured that Tusk’s grandfather had joined the Wehrmacht at the end of the Second World War[3] which, according to the media, caused his support to haemorrhage. The dubious suggestion was that Poles are so consumed with hatred for Germany that the revelation that a candidate might have a distant relative who fought with the Nazis was enough to destroy him at the polls. The fact that he (Tusk) might be planning to put more of them out of work while selling off the remains of the family silver is, according to this argument, of secondary importance. However, it provided a convenient excuse to explain how his support fell on the eve of the second round of voting.[4]
In fact, the establishment media proved to be a willing conduit of smears before the presidential election. The story about Tusk’s grand father followed earlier ‘revelations’ about former SLD prime minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz who announced his surprise candidacy on 28th June and who immediately leapt to first place in opinion polls published on 6th July.[5] In late July he was polling 30-35%. However, on 14th September he withdraw his candidacy when it was revealed he had failed to declare owning shares in the scandal prone company PKN Orlen . “ His reputation was further damaged by a claim, made by a former assistant, that he had initially included the transaction in his declaration but had later instructed her to remove it. The document produced in support of this claim was subsequently dismissed as a forgery.”[6] In fact, Cimoszewicz had actually lost money on the deal.
On 14th September, he retired from the race.[7] However, even though he had never suffered the relentlessly negative press coverage reserved for Lepper and Giertych he was obviously not favoured by Poland’s ruling elite. Although he intended to stand as an independent there was probably concern that his candidacy would give a boost to the SLD. In the end, the SLD advised its supporters to vote for Borowski even though he was a member of the SdPl.
Initially, the media presented Kaczynski and Tusk as similar ‘reformist’ candidates although, later, Kaczynski was painted as the candidate of the ‘Right’. According to BHHRG’s Polish representative, media debates between them lacked bite. They came across as a harmonious duo regularly offering good wishes to each others’ families rather than indulging in the cut and thrust of debate. Tusk called Kaczynski his “political friend” and claims that for this reason he hesitated to take part in the presidential election. On 6th October, he even said that there was “no difference” between himself and Kaczynski on the homosexual issue which must have surprised liberals who sought to paint Kaczynski as a bigot. Both support the Iraq war as well as other foreign policy issues.[8] However, despite the Tweedle-dum, Tweedle-dee act, BHHRG suspected early on that the elites wanted a Kaczynski victory which may explain why he was allowed to adopt a more populist stance. While EU representatives tut tutted in response to his remarks about gays and the death penalty, no such criticism has been forthcoming from Washington.
Election Day
BHHRG observed the first round of the presidential election in Przemysl close to the Ukrainian border and in the towns and villages of the south- eastern Bieszczady region, including Ustrzyki Dolni, Bircza, Lesko, Sanok and Krasiczyn. This is one of the poorest parts of Poland made worse by stricter control of the border with neighbouring Ukraine imposed after Poland entered the EU in 2004. A once thriving cross border trade has reduced dramatically: locals say that the buoyant market in Przemysl is a shadow of its former self.
BHHRG saw huddles of poor Ukrainian women queuing for hours to cross the border with their pathetic wares and encountered local Poles selling what appeared to be moonshine vodka in the back streets of the small town of Lesko. The problem with alcohol in this area was evident as, after dark, drunks wove their way home along country roads. Przemysl itself a once handsome Austro-Hungarian garrison town is engulfed by poverty and hopelessness. A polling commission chairman told the Group that everything in and around the town had been “liquidated” including its largest plant which once employed over 2,500 people.
Most polling stations visited during the day were empty when BHHRG visited. In one or two the odd voter drifted in. Sometimes a small huddle would appear shortly after the Group appeared leading to the suspicion that a few locals had been rounded up and told to come out to vote when word got round that observers were in town. A commission member usually went out - possibly to make a phone call while BHHRG (tried to) gain facts and figures from the chairman.
Not surprisingly, election officials told BHHRG that there was “total disillusionment” At 11.00 a.m. on election day only one young person had voted in Przemysl (No. 21) according to the election commission chairman.
As the day drew to a close, it became almost impossible to gain any information from polling commissions. At 5.50 pm in Sanok (No. 2) the commission chairman refused to say how many voters were registered or how many had voted. At 19.30 pm, shortly before the polls closed BHHRG’s observers visited Krasiczyn ( No. 1) where they were given some data on turnout, but only after a long wait during which time their passports were checked.
There was no way in which BHHRG could check the accuracy of these figures. In Przemysl (No. 14) the Group’s monitors were told by the commission chairman that c.1000 people had voted shortly before 20.00 hours. But a colleague accused her of exaggeration. Two hours after the polls closed BHHRG returned to Krasiczyn. The polling station was shut, the lights were out and everyone had left. Afterwards, politicians and other election workers told BHHRG that they would be very surprised if it would have been possible to count the votes, deal with unused ballot papers and other bits of election bureaucracy, including filling in the protocols, in such a short time.
Presidential election, first round, 9th October, polling stations visited:
Przemysl No. 21 (11.00) 335 reg. 81 voted
Przemysl No. 14 (11.30) 2,232 reg. 229 voted
Bircza No 1 (13.00) 2,217 reg. 20% voted
Ustrzyki Dolni No. 3 (16.30) 890 reg. 30% voted
Lesko a No. 3 (17.15) 2060 reg. 33% voted
Sanok No. 2 (18.30) No information given
Krasiczyn No. 1 (19.30) 934 reg. voters 428 voted
Przemysl No. 14 (19.55) 1000 voted
Results acc. to CEC: : Donald Tusk – 36.33%; Lech Kaczyński – 33.1%; Andrzej Lepper 15.11%; Marek Borowski (Polish Social Democracy) – 10.33%; Jarosław Kalinowski (Polish Peasants’ Party) – 1.8%; Janusz Korwin-Mikke (Janusz Korwin-Mikke’s Platform) – 1.43%; Henryka Bochniarz (Democratic Party-demokraci.pl) – 1.26%.
The remaining candidates garnered from 0.21% (Liwiusz Ilasz) to 0.06% (Adam Słomka) of the vote.
Round Two
Observation in Krakow, Nowa Huta, Niepolomice,Klaj, Bochnia
Presidential election, second round. Polling stations visited:
Krakow, No. 6, (12.00) 848 reg. 146 voted
Nowa Huta No. 391, (1.00) 1607 200 voted
Nowa Huta, No. 315, (16. 29) 50% voted
Niepolomice No. 1 (2.45) 1956 reg. pm. 500 voted
Klaj No. 7 (15.45) 1166 reg. 360 voted
Bochnia No. 1 (17.00) 2041 reg. 849 voted
Krakow, No 11/12, (18.49) 1280 reg. 400 voted
Official Result
Results: Kaczynski: 54% Tusk : 46%
Post-election
As BHHRG has pointed out, there are mixed messages coming from the new government in Warsaw which at one moment plans to cut the Polish budget deficit while simultaneously promising to increase social spending. PiS will surely face problems with the parties on which it relies to govern - Samoobrana and the League - which could lead to the collapse of the minority government. If that comes about, the ‘dream deal’ between PiS and PO will be revived to the delight of foreign investors and other reform-minded observers of the Polish scene.
[1] RFE/RL 21st June, 2001, www.rferl.org,
[2] TV Polonia, Warsaw 18th October 2005, www.bbcmonitoringonline.com,
[3] “Polish candidate denies Nazi roots” , 11th October, 2005 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/11/world/main933939.shtml,
[4] The ambiguous relationship with Nazi and post-war West Germany of many Poles whose families came from what was Imperial German territory before November, 1918 is one of the themes of the memoirs of the new Polish defence minister. See, Radek Sikorski, The Polish House. An Intimate History of Poland (Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, 1997),
[5] Poll in Rzeczpospolita 6th July 2005 gave Cimoszewicz 28%, Kaczynski 19%, Lepper 17%, Tusk 11%,
[6] “Poland, politics: The left’s stillborn revival” Economist Intelligence Unit http://www.viewswire.com/index.asp?layout=display_print&doc_id=1259418911,
[7] The hypocrisy involved in smearing Cimoszewicz is revealed by the fact that former prime minister and SLD leader Leszek Miller who was forced to resign over the PKN Orlen scandal is now a respected Woodrow Wilson scholar in Washington,
[8] Marius Heuser “Polish presidential election: play off between two right-wing candidates” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/pola-o14.shtml 14th October, 2005.
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