POLISH GOVERNING PARTY SIGNS COOPERATION ACCORD

UNCLAS WARSAW 000177

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV PL
SUBJECT: POLISH GOVERNING PARTY SIGNS COOPERATION ACCORD
WITH PROTEST PARTIES, EARLY ELECTIONS SEEN LESS LIKELY

REF: WARSAW 134 AND PREVIOUS


1. (SBU) Summary: Poland's governing Law and Justice (PiS)
party concluded a "stabilization pact" February 2 with
opposition protest parties Self-Defense (SO) and the League
of Polish Families (LPR),committing the parties to cooperate
on a detailed legislative agenda but stopping short of a
formal coalition (or, apparently, SO and LPR representation
in government). PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski declared the
"political crisis over," indicating that the need for early
elections had been avoided. Kaczynski's twin brother,
President Lech Kaczynski, had yet to state as of early
February 3 whether he had made a decision on new elections
(he has eleven days remaining to decide),but his staff
welcomed news of the political pact and suggested that
elections are now less likely. PiS may have concluded, based
on recent polls, that re-running elections would not yield it
a majority and that an alliance with SO and LPR provides the
best chance in the short term for implementing its reform
agenda. End summary.


2. (SBU) Playing on LPR's and SO's fears that they would fail
to win enough support to meet the parliamentary threshold if
new elections were held, Jaroslaw Kaczynski masterminded the
"stabilization pact" as a kind of coalition on the cheap.
The extreme right-wing LPR and populist SO will not formally
join the government, but they have agreed to support 156
separate legislative priorities proposed by PiS, notably
items key to their domestic agenda, including creation of an
anti-corruption office, creation of a truth and justice
commission and wider property lustration (public accounting
of assets by a broader group of government officials). They
also agreed to not criticize the government, or to support
any no-confidence vote against PM Marcinkiewicz or anyone in
his cabinet. The pact is supposed to last for twelve months,
and, according to PiS leading negotiator Przemyslaw
Gosiewski, is open to other parties, particularly the Polish
Peasants' Party (PSL),which was involved earlier in
negotiating with PiS. PiS also continues efforts to peel
away members of the principal opposition party, Civic
Platform (PO),but the likelihood of a full-fledged PO-PiS
coalition (the preference of many in both parties) is now
extremely remote.


3. (SBU) PO's Jan Rokita sharply condemned the PiS-LPR-SO
stabilization pact as bad for Poland, and predicted that PiS
would have trouble governing with unreliable "schemers" such
as LPR's Roman Giertych and SO leader Andrzej Lepper. For
their part, Giertych and Lepper were enthusiastic about the
accord; Giertych declared that the pact marks the beginning
of the "Fourth Republic" in Poland (an appellation signifying
for the Polish right a wholesale transformation -- and
decommunization -- of the state). PiS and its new partners
created a minor stir at the signing itself by granting
exclusive coverage of the event to right-wing Catholic new
media (previously supporters of LPR, now aggressively courted
by PiS). Mainstream media boycotted a news conference
afterwards in protest.


4. (SBU) Comment: The threat of new elections has eased, but
cannot be dismissed entirely -- not given the volatile
political scene of recent weeks. We understand from senior
PiS officials that the party leadership was nearly evenly
split on whether to back the pact or seek new elections.
Recent polls have shown PO maintaining a close second place
to PiS, which -- together with smaller parties just
surpassing the five-percent threshold -- would deny PiS the
absolute majority it craves. Under those circumstances,
Jaroslaw Kaczynski has admitted, it would make no sense to
hold new elections only to return to the same relative
position. However, LPR's and SO's reliability as partners
(especially once the president's window of opportunity to
call elections passes) has to be a concern for PiS, even as
Kaczynski may be looking at this arrangement as an
opportunity to hold these parties close and displace them
completely with their electorates.
ASHE