PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED, MINISTERS FIRED, ELECTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 WARSAW 001916

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/09/2022
TAGS: PGOV PREL MARR PL
SUBJECT: PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED, MINISTERS FIRED, ELECTIONS
SET, SITUATION NORMAL...

REF: WARSAW 1871 AND PREVIOUS

WARSAW 00001916 001.2 OF 002


Classified By: Political Counselor Mary T. Curtin for reasons
1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (U) Summary: The Polish Parliament voted to dissolve
itself by a wide majority on September 7, setting the stage
for early elections. President Kaczynski as expected set the
election date for October 21. The political fur is already
flying in what is expected to be a brutal campaign. Civic
Platform (PO) leader Donald Tusk crowed that "we have forced
the capitulation of Jaroslaw Kaczynski," and his party is
expected to focus on the disarray and incompetence of the
Kaczynski government. Law and Justice (PiS) seeks to cast
the election as a stark choice between those who fight
corruption versus those who accept it, with a strong
underlying message that they are the only party that will go
after rich elites. In so doing they hope to simultaneously
attack the two largest opposition parties. While PO leads in
most polls, PiS has a record of effective (if nasty)
campaigning. As reported earlier, no party is expected to
win a majority, and whichever wins will face tough choices in
building a governing coalition. While domestic issues will
dominate, foreign policy issues of concern to the U.S. will
be part of the campaign. End Summary
Jarek Kaczynski: "I am the Minister of Everything"
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2. (U) As expected, the Polish Sejm voted to dissolve itself
two years ahead of schedule, forcing new parliamentary
elections that have been set for October 21. The vote was a
comfortable majority of 377 to 54, with 20 abstentions. As
expected, PiS, PO, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the
Peasant's Party (PSL) supported the motion, and only Self
Defense (SO) and the League of Polish Families (LPR) opposed
the measure. The vote came only after hours of nasty debate
over the nearly two years of PiS government, with accusations
flying from leading opposition parties and PiS's former
coalition partners over the conduct of government, and from
PiS about corruption it sees all around.


3. (U) Prime Minister Kaczynski's first move, coming only 15
minutes after the vote, was to dismiss all his ministers in
order to deprive the opposition of the opportunity to engage
in a potentially damaging Sejm debate on PO's separate
motions of no confidence in individual cabinet ministers.
With the minister now simply "acting," and PM Kaczynski
declaring himself "the Minister of Everything," the no
confidence resolutions are moot. Kaczynski subsequently
reappointed Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga (although the
opposition has questioned the legality of the move since
Fotyga, who was at an EU Ministerial Meeting in Portugal at
the time, did not meet the constitutional requirement that
she be physically present in Poland at the time of the
appointment),and Transport Minister Jerzy Polaczek. There
are conflicting reports over whether or not more
(re)appointments will be forthcoming.

Tusk: We Have Forced Kaczynski to Capitulate
--------------


4. (C) The campaign, which is expected to be nasty, began
before the dissolution vote was even finished. PO leader
Donald Tusk crowed that "we have forced the capitulation of
Jaroslaw Kaczynski," to loud applause. Tusk has vowed to run
as a candidate from Warsaw (rather than his hometown of
Gdansk) to face off directly against PM Kaczynski. PO has
also offered a number of PiS luminaries, including former PM
Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and former MOD Radek Sikorski, a
place on PO's roster of candidates. Leader of the Polish
Senate Bogdan Boruszewicz -- nominally an independent, but
closely associated with PiS and the Kaczynskis in the last
election -- has announced he will jump to PO and run for the
Parliament as its lead candidate in Gdansk. PO shadow
foreign minister Bronislaw Komorowski told visiting EUR A/S
Dan Fried September 8 that PO will focus its campaign against
(1) PiS's handling of foreign policy, arguing that Poland
needs to be a player in the EU if it is to benefit from EU
membership; (2) the inadequacies in the health care system,
arguing PiS has done nothing to improve it; and (3) against
the general ineffectiveness of the tumultuous Kaczynski
governing style.


5. (C) The Left and Democrats (LiD),which brings together
the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and a small
group of post-Solidarity leftists, will, as former defense
minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski told us, bring out former
President Aleksandr Kwasniewski to spearhead its campaign.
LiD hopes to build on Kwasniewski's still high opinion poll
ratings and his effective foreign policy leadership. Press
reports indicate that LiD will not allow former Prime

WARSAW 00001916 002.2 OF 002


Minister Leszek Miller, back onto the parliamentary lists
despite his declared interest. Miller's government collapsed
in 2004 over charges of corruption and cronyism that nearly
destroyed SLD, and LiD does not want give PiS such an easy
campaign target.

PiS Steps Up to Fight the "Aristocrats"
--------------


6. (C) Corruption will be the focus of the PiS campaign, and
PM Kaczynski came out swinging this weekend, aiming most of
his criticism at Kwasniewski and the former SLD government,
but including PO in the blasts. Kaczynski has a double
barreled message, aimed at each of the main opposition
parties. "You are," he said, "either for fighting
corruption, or one of those not interested in fighting
corruption." PiS will paint LiD as the successor of the
corruption-rid SLD government and (as it did in 2005) PO as
arrogant elites who are not interested in regular Poles. As
presidential media advisor Michal Kaminski told us, PiS
believes its detention of former Minister of Interior
Kaczmarek and dramatic revelation of his links to wealthy
businessman Ryszard Krauze resonate with many Poles who
believe the wealthy got that way only because of corruption.
Meeting with A/S Fried on September 7, former PM and Polish
Peasants Party (PSL) chief Waldemar Pawlak said that his own
father was delighted with the Krauze investigation, because
it proved that someone was finally going after the
"aristocracy." The PiS government will likely make more
announcements in those investigations and has promised a
long-overdue report on alleged links between the former
Military Intelligence Service (WSI) and corrupt businessmen,
which it will use to stoke its campaign.


7. (C) The first polls released after the dissolution bear
out Kaminski's claims, showing PiS evenly matched against PO
(33 percent each),with a resurgent LiD (16 percent). The
faltering PSL is at five percent, presumably pulling away
support from SO which is below the parliamentary threshold.
LPR surprisingly polled at six percent, thus above the
threshold, on the basis of a political partnership with
another nationalist micro-party, the "Union of Real
Politics." (The SO-LPR coalition announced in July is
apparently dead.) The election is essentially PO's to lose,
but it has proven adept at doing just that, squandering a
sizable lead in the 2005 elections, and offering little
beyond "not being PiS" so far in this campaign season. PiS
may achieve its goal of devouring its rivals--and former
coalition partners--on the right, by knocking out SO and,
potentially, LPR. PiS strategists like Kaminski are
confident that its campaign messages PiS's core voters in
rural Poland, and that they will continue to vote in higher
percentages than PO's younger, wealthier, and better educated
potential voters. PO's challenge will be to convince these
potential voters to get to polls, which they did not do in

2005.

MD Unlikely to be Politicized, but "Don't Hand us a Fait
Accompli"
-------------- --------------


8. (C) Comment: Electoral lists will not be completed until
late September, and it is too early to predict how effective
the campaigns of the various parties will be, but it is
almost certain that no party will win a majority, meaning
either another minority government or another round of
difficult coalition government negotiations. As we have
noted before, the focus will be almost entirely on domestic
politics, especially the conduct of the PiS government, but
issues of concern to the U.S., including Missile Defense,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Poland's role in Europe, will be on
the table. In their meetings with A/S Fried, opposition
(SLD, PSL, and PO) leaders said they did not intend to make
Missile Defense a campaign theme, but asked that a new Polish
government not be presented a fait accompli. A/S Fried
reassured them that the negotiations were ongoing, but would
not finish before the October 21 elections. We have already
seen some willingness to try to criticize the government on
the management of Polish deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan,
which are widely opposed by the Polish public. In a closely
fought campaign there is some chance that these issues might
surface more seriously in the cat fight between the parties.

HILLAS