COHABITATION TENSIONS CONTINUE AS PRESIDENT SEEKS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 WARSAW 000124

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/29/2023
TAGS: PGOV PREL MARR PL
SUBJECT: COHABITATION TENSIONS CONTINUE AS PRESIDENT SEEKS
(WITHOUT SUCCESS) TO ASSERT ROLE


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


1. (C) Summary: President Lech Kaczynski's often-clumsy
efforts to assert the power and role of the presidency have
created a bumpy record at "cohabitation" with PM Donald
Tusk's government, and done nothing to increase the
president's influence or his party's popularity. President
Kaczynski and his advisors have attempted a number of
unsuccessful maneuvers to assert leadership in foreign and
domestic policy (especially with regard to special services)
and to politically weaken Tusk and Civic Platform (PO),
ranging from priority issues for the U.S., such as Iraq,
Missile Defense, and relations with Moscow, to domestic
problems such as the health care crisis. Tusk and his
government have generally come out on top, revealing errors
in President Kaczynski's (or his advisors') reading of the
constitution and often simply catching them in inaccuracies.
The Kaczynskis' almost reflexive combative style, which lost
them the 2007 elections, shows through, meaning the Tusk
government comes out looking good in most of the encounters.
There is cooperation on some important issues--such as
attendance at the NATO summit or unity in support for
Georgian President Saakashvili--but we fully expect President
Kaczynski to continue to seek to muscle in on foreign policy
priorities. The effectiveness of spinning stories for their
political advantage is limited, and Tusk has gained
popularity by taking the moral high ground. End Summary.

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FM Sikorski Summoned Home for Urgent Meeting
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2. (U) With meetings planned for Brussels, Kyiv and
Washington within five days, Poland's peripatetic Foreign
Minister, Radek Sikorski, was forced to leave Brussels
half-way through an EU foreign minister's meeting on January
28 when he was summoned back to Warsaw for an "immediate and
urgent" meeting with President Lech Kaczynski. Before
leaving Brussels, Sikorski told the press that he expected
the meeting to be focused on Ukraine, where Sikorski would
travel on January 30. After a 90-minute meeting with
Kaczynski and Anna Fotyga, his predecessor as FM and now the
President's Chief of Staff and senior advisor on foreign
policy, Sikorski refused any comment. However, the
Presidential Chancellery later said that Ukraine was only
discussed briefly. The FM spokesman responded with a barbed
comment that there had been "no good reason" to bring
Sikorski back early. On January 29, in his usual understated
manner, Deputy PM and Minister of Interior Grzegorz Schetyna
signalled the government's irritation, underscoring that if
the meeting with the President could have been delayed, it
should have, and suggested that "relations between (the
chancelleries) should be built in a responsible way." Fotyga
defended the President saying it was "entirely the FM's
choice to leave Brussels early," prompting Sikorski to
respond that he had the impression that President Kaczynski
"was again misled by his employees."


3. (C) President Kaczynski's actions speak to the fitful
quality of his cohabitation with PM Donald Tusk, who trounced
Kaczynski's identical twin, Law and Justice (PiS) party head
and former Prime Minister Jarek Kaczynski, in October 2007
parliamentary elections. The President tried to stop the
appointment of Sikorski as Foreign Minister, mostly out of
lingering anger over Sikorski's open disdain for the
Kaczysnkis after his resignation as Minister of Defense in
the Kaczynski government. President Kaczynski and his
advisors have complained vigorously about Tusk's approach on
foreign policy, disagreeing pointedly on the withdrawal of
Polish troops from Iraq, and criticizing the government's
efforts to ease relations with Russia and its approach to MD
negotiations, and battling over ambassadorial assignments.
With the Kaczynskis trying to assert their ideological goal
of creating a strong presidency, it is certain that the
Presidential chancellery will continue to jockey with the
government for influence or preeminence on foreign policy and
security matters, despite most experts' assessment that in
most cases, the constitution gives the government the lead.

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Missile Defense and Iraq: All Politics are Local
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4. (C) One subject for dispute has been negotiations over
the proposed placement of interceptor sites in Poland as part
of the U.S. missile defense program. Kaczynski is a strong
proponent of the sites, whereas PM Tusk is publicly more
ambivalent. Tusk's position more accurately reflects Polish
popular skepticism over MD, arguing that he needs a better
security deal for Poland to sell MD domestically. Kaczynski

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has already used surrogates to sound out the idea that Tusk
is caving into pressure from Moscow's opposition to the
extension of MD to Poland. Indeed, Fotyga has publicly
criticized the government's approach as soft on Russia. If
MD negotiations falter, Kaczynski will surely exploit the
issue for political gain domestically, painting Tusk as weak
on security. Similarly, President Kaczynski opposed
withdrawing troops from Iraq and at first suggested he would
veto the government's December 2007 proposal to extend troops
in Iraq until October 31, 2008, saying he wanted a later end
date. He backed down, however, when the government pointed
out that a veto would mean the troops would have had to come
home at the end of 2007. Constitutionally, he has no role in
MD negotiations, and can veto the deployment of troops, but
not order them.


5. (U) Tensions between the chancelleries extend equally
into domestic issues, including wrangling over appointments
of chiefs of the special services and exchanging insults over
the worrisome state of the Polish public health sector. The
Kaczynskis remain obsessed with control of the services and
the President tried to block Tusk's new appointments to
intelligence agencies by exploiting vague wording requiring
the PM to seek the President's opinion (but not approval of)
new appointees. When the President tried to stop the process
by simply failing to respond, Tusk called his bluff and
appointed new service chiefs without the Presidential
opinion. On health care, Tusk complains openly that the
Kaczynskis left this problem to fester, and that the
President's efforts to convene a "White Summit" on January 14
to address the issue were little more than a political ploy.
Afterwards, Tusk criticized Kaczynski as ill prepared, saying
that Kaczynski "did not want to help," but "wanted to present
his position instead." Tusk added that the President "asked
three questions but was so impatient that he did not want to
listen to the answers." The debate over how to rescue
Poland's crumbling national health service has now returned
to the purview of the government and the Sejm.

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Exploiting Issues for Political Gain
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6. (C) Even national tragedies have come into political
play. President Kaczynski lashed out at the Tusk government,
and Minister of Defense Bogdan Klich in particular, claiming
Klich failed to alert him in a timely fashion to the January
23 airplane crash which claimed the lives of 19 Polish
officers in western Poland. Afterwards, it became clear that
the government had sought to contact counterparts at the
Polish National Security Agency (BBN),but no one was on hand
after working hours, and moreover that Presidential advisor
Michal Kaminski was informed of the accident, but failed to
tell the President. The Presidential chancellery lamely
argued, subsequently, that it was MOD Klich's responsibility
to contact the President personally. The Presidency was
widely criticized for what appeared to be simply an effort to
attack Klich. The Kaczynski penchant for stoking a crisis
first and dealing with the facts later was also evident when
the President complained that Warsaw's Mayor, Hanna
Gronkiewicz-Walz, failed to notify him of roadwork to be done
on the street in front of his office. That, too, was walked
back when the Mayor provided the press information as to the
President's prior notification. The Tusk government
approach, is to put out the facts, then sadly regret that the
President has been misled by his advisors, an approach that
seems to work with public opinion.


7. (C) Comment: Given the highly polarized nature of
domestic Polish politics, we are not surprised that tension
continues between PM Tusk's government and President
Kaczynski. This will continue. On some critical issues,
such as the NATO summit and broad policy toward Ukraine and
Georgia, for example, they seem to be able to reach
agreement, but many see the hand of Jarek Kaczynski in the
constant and often ill-planned dust-ups. The more
interesting point is that Kaczynski's efforts to exploit
domestic and international issues for political gain has
fallen largely flat, with PM Tusk credited for taking the
moral high road. With the Polish Constitution purposefully
vague on the separation of powers, but generally clear on the
leading role of the government, we anticipate that a spirited
contest for influence will continue to play itself out, with
undoubtedly greater intensity as 2010 Presidential elections
draw closer.
ASHE