ELECTION SEASON IN FULL SWING WITH PARLIAMENTARY

C O N F I D E N T I A L WARSAW 002912

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/21/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL PL
SUBJECT: ELECTION SEASON IN FULL SWING WITH PARLIAMENTARY
LISTS AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES CHOSEN


Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, A.I., Mary Curtin for Reasons 1.5(B)
and (D)

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (C) With just over two months until parliamentary
elections and just under three months until the first round
of presidential elections, the election season in Poland is
in full swing. The presidential race is still fluid.
Parliamentary speaker Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, who entered
the race several weeks ago, has surged into first place in
most polls, with conventional wisdom now being that he will
face center-right Law and Justice (PiS) leader Lech Kaczynski
in the final round. Opinion polls on the parliamentary
elections have been less volatile, but presumed future
coalition partners, centrist Civic Platform (PO) and PiS have
switched places, with PiS now generally seen as in the lead,
which would affect the make-up of a coalition government and
impact the presidential race. In the meantime, the currently
governing Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) continues its public
infighting, with the old guard being shoved off Sejm
electoral lists and into the less powerful Senate. Parties
farther out on the political spectrum, including populist
Self-Defense (SO) and Catholic nationalist League of Polish
Families (LPR) will likely run ahead of their polling
numbers, but not participate in any government. Several
other parties may not meet the five percent threshold to be
seated in parliament. End Summary.

--------------
Cimoszewicz the New
Presidential Front-runner
--------------


2. (SBU) The entry of Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz into the very
fluid presidential race as the principal candidate of the
left has once again created a new front-runner. Cimoszewicz
shot to first place in recent opinion polls, ahead of
center-right PiS candidate, Lech Kaczynski, and non-partisan
candidate Zbigniew Religa, who led some surveys just a month
ago. Two surveys published July 19 show Cimoszewicz winning
30 and 31 percent of the vote in the first round of
elections, with Kaczynski scoring 20 and 25 percent, and
Religa dropping behind populist Andrzej Lepper. However, the
two new surveys differ on which of the two would win the
second round, with one poll showing Cimoszewicz winning 58
percent of the vote if matched with Kaczynski, and another
showing them in a dead heat. Populist Andrzej Lepper, PO's
Donald Tusk, and Religa are variously shown as having 10 to
15 percent support. The rest of the candidates (there are
now some nine candidates announced, although not all have
officially filed) fall below ten percent.


3. (C) Cimoszewicz, who originally announced he would not
run for president, told Ambassador he was joining the race in
order to stop Kaczynski, who enjoyed a lead in late spring
and early summer. Support for Kaczynski has kept him
steadily in first or second place in most polls for several
months, but his rise in popularity also sparked a
counter-reaction of support for candidates seen as able to
stop him. Before Cimoszewicz announced his candidacy,
Religa, a heart surgeon with no clear platform, peaked with
25 percent support in one opinion poll, dropping to 14
percent in today's survey. It is hard to predict whether or
not support for Cimoszewicz will hold. He has enjoyed a
bounce despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he
stormed out of an July 9 Sejm investigatory commission
hearing, criticizing the commission's members and purpose.
There are a significant number of Poles with left and
center-left political identification who are looking for a
candidate to support, even if they have lost faith in the
SLD. This could provide Cimoszewicz -- as a credible
"anti-Kaczynski" -- with sustained support.

--------------
PiS Moves Ahead in
Parliamentary Race
--------------


4. (SBU) The parliamentary race has been less volatile, with
the greatest shift in recent months being center-right PiS's
gradual trend toward first place, and centrist PO's
concomitant slide into second place, changing presumptions
about the balance of power and division of spoils in a future
coalition government. Most polls have for some time shown
that PiS and PO will be the top two vote (and seat) getters,
and together should win enough votes to form a coalition
government. Until recent months, however, poll results
showed that PO would win more votes and seats, and common
wisdom was that PO leader Jan Rokita would become Prime
Minister, with something of a presumption that Lech Kaczynski
would win the presidency, providing a neat balance for the


two parties. In recent months, PiS has steadily moved ahead
of PO in most polls. While both PiS and PO leaders
consistently say that they expect to form a coalition, they
have been more sharply battling each other for the top
position, with PO leaders, in particular, attacking PiS's
more statist economic platform and plans for constitutional
and governmental reforms.


5. (SBU) A PiS lead could pose some problems for both
parties. It would be hard for Rokita, who has been playing
the role of presumptive Prime Minister for some time, to
accept a lesser position if PO ends up in second place. On
policy matters, he has stated publicly and privately that PO
will insist upon its liberal economic agenda, including a
flat tax, as a condition of coalition, but he will have a
hard time doing that if PiS holds the winning hand and ends
up with the Prime Minister's office and other leading
domestic ministries. A PiS win could also be problematic for
PiS itself, and for Lech Kaczynski's presidential bid in
particular. His twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is the
party's parliamentary leader, and would be the only obvious
PiS choice for Prime Minister, but there is considerable
discomfort with the thought of the identical twins running
the country. Even the Kaczynski's have ruled out such a
scenario. Some have suggested that Rokita would be prime
minister no matter which party holds more seats.
Nonetheless, many commentators think that if PiS has a strong
showing in the parliamentary race, voters will balance that
out with a vote for another candidate, such as Cimoszewicz,
when they return to the polls two weeks later for the first
round of the presidential election.

--------------
SLD Infighting Continues
--------------


6. (SBU) In the meantime, the SLD continues to struggle with
internal battles and support in the polls hovering around 10
percent despite Cimoszewicz's popularity bounce. The SLD
National Council came out of a seven-hour meeting over the
weekend with the announcement that several of the party's
hard-line old guard, including former Prime Minister Leszek
Miller, former Sejm Marshal and party chief Jozef Oleksy, as
well as Marek Dyduch and Jerzy Jaskierna would not be on
SLD's parliamentary election lists, and instead would have to
run for the less powerful Senate. (Miller has already said
he would not run.) There is considerable speculation over
who holds the real power in the SLD, with most people
assuming it is not the 31-year old leader, Wojciech
Olejniczak, who was elected to head the party in May. Other
party stalwarts, including Defense Minister Jerzy
Szmajdzinski, Interior Minister Richard Kalisz, SLD
Parliamentary club leader Krzysztof Janik, and Sejm Deputy
Katarzyna Piekarska, are all parliamentary list leaders in
their constituencies. Several commentators, including a
public TV program July 19 report, say that the old guard are
complaining that President Kwasniewski, who has undertaken
several efforts to rejuvenate and reform the SLD's image, is
behind Olejniczak's push to exile Oleksy, Miller and the
others. Olejniczak, of course, asserts that he is the real
leader. The SLD can count on a minimum level of support from
die-hard members who benefited from the socialist system, but
it seems there is little it can do to significantly improve
its electoral chances in this election, and SLD leaders
seemed resigned to simply holding on so they can position
themselves for the future.

--------------
Other Parties Position
Themselves for Parliamentary
Roles, but Some Will Lose Out
--------------


7. (C) Farther out along the political spectrum, both
Andrzej Lepper's Self Defense (SO) and the Catholic
nationalist LPR seem likely each to win a block of voters in
the 10-15 percent range, but are not expected to join any
government. LPR, according to most observers, has a solid
group of supporters, and some splintering in the party and
differences with the influential Catholic "Radio Maryja" do
not seem to have hurt it much. LPR may end up with a
somewhat better showing on election day than polls indicate
because LPR voters turn out in higher percentages than the
overall population. (However, LPR's presidential candidate,
Maciej Giertych, father of its parliamentary leader, Roman
Giertych, ranks consistently very low in the polls.) And,
despite some earlier speculations that PiS might look to the
Catholic nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR) for
support if PO and PiS do not hold a solid parliamentary
majority, it is now clear from public and private statements
that the fundamental differences between the parties are
quite sharp, even though they appeal to some of the same
voters. In a meeting with Ambassador, PiS parliamentary
leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski harshly criticized the world view


of LPR leader Roman Giertych, especially his
ultra-nationalist views. Roman Giertych has said, however,
that LPR might cast a vote of confidence in favor of a
presumed PO-PiS coalition.


8. (SBU) Lepper and his party could also perform better
than expected. Some political observers predict that
disgruntled former SLD supporters will cast their vote for SO
and Lepper, attracted by Lepper's populist rhetoric. Several
observers have told us that they think that there are a
significant number of people who will vote for SO candidates
or for Lepper in the privacy of the ballot box, but do not
want to admit this to a pollster, meaning he and his party
could do better than polls are predicting. But all polls
show that Lepper would be soundly defeated in any match up
should he somehow make it to the second round of the
presidential election.


9. (SBU) Several other parties across the spectrum are
hovering so close to the five percent mark that they may not,
in the end, win enough votes to be seated in the Sejm. The
evolution of the post-Solidarity Freedom Union (UW) party
into the new Democratic Party (PD),and the splash caused by
its recruitment of several high profile SLD members,
including former economy minister Jerzy Hausner, has not
helped it at all in the opinion polls, and PD may not win any
seats. Other parties in a similar position include Social
Democracy Poland (SDPL -- which broke away from SLD in 2004
over corruption),the Peasants Party (PSL -- Poland's oldest
political party and a former partner of SLD in the current
government),the Union of Labor (UP -- another SLD partner),
and the Greens (which currently hold no parliamentary seats).


--------------
Comment
--------------


10. (SBU) While filing deadlines are not until next month
(August 16 for presidential candidates and August 25 for
parliamentary candidates),the outlines of the election are
now clear, and the campaigns fully under way. This is the
first time parliamentary and presidential elections have been
held in such close proximity, and so it is hard to speculate
on the impact of each election on the other. In addition,
opinion polls about support for various parties are done on a
nationwide basis, whereas the proportional division of the
parliamentary seats will be done at the level of the
electoral district, meaning there could be some significant
differences between the relative position of parties in the
polls and the number of Sejm seats they end up winning. End
Comment.
CURTIN