After the end of communist rule, Poland has never seen economic prosperity nor enjoyed political stability. Uncertainty continues in the country as the Polish parliament or Sejm voted by a two-third majority to dissolve itself.
The coalition government led by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski was in troubled waters after the prime minister removed Andrzej Lepper, head of the farming-based Self-Defence party, which was part of the coalition, on corruption charges. Next to go was interior minister, Janusz Kaczmarek as he was weakening the case against Lepper. Kaczemarek was also accused of sharing state secrets with Polish businessman, Ryszard Krauze.
The Polish prime minister commited this seeming political hara-kiri with an eye to the future. The Law and Justice party formed by him and his brother Lech Kaczynski, who is presently the country’s president, had won the 2005 election of issues of anti-corruption and anti-communism. The arrest of Lepper, at the cost of government’s survival has increased the popularity of the party.
The majority to vote the present parliament out of existence came because even the chief opposition party, Civic Platform too wanted fresh elections as recent opinion polls had suggested it was gaining at the expense of the ruling Law and Justice party. Though it is Jaroslaw Kaczynski who is laughing now as the same polls indicate his party is leading presently. But Polish voters are notoriously volatile and fickle and it would be hasty to make predictions at this stage.
Parties which will lose ground are disgraced Lepper’s Self Defence party and another of Kaczynski’s former coalition partner, League of Polish Families, which made itself a laughing stock after it made a hue and cry about the supposed hint of homosexuality in a children’s TV show.
Another player, Democratic Left Alliance, the revamped avatar of the socialists remains at best a fringe player in Polish politics. It remains an untouchable to both the major centre-right parties.
