WARSAW, Poland—Winning an election in Poland is one thing. Quite another is forming a workable government. Particularly under the all-too-common circumstance that the only viable option is to hitch up with a more or less agreeable partner in a coalition that, as history shows, is all-too-often fraught with mutual mistrust and political outmaneuvering, more often than not culminating in divorce.
By such accounts, the Civic Platform-Polish Peasant’s Party coalition that ruled Poland for the four years prior to last month’s elections, looked like a marriage made in heaven. While not without its moments, the partnership stuck it out through thick and thin, including the major brunt of a global financial crisis that has so far toppled the Greek government and frontman of Italy’s political scene, Silvio Berlusconi.
And as of a few days ago, the Polish coalition redux looked poised to do it all over again. On the surface the somewhat unlikely coalitionists—Civic Platform is a business-friendly, right-of-center urbanite party, while the Polish Peasant’s Party’s name really says it all—publicly renewed their vows and in an official ceremony in the presidential palace have been formally entrusted with the mandate to govern by the president of Poland.
With the first well-rehearsed dance of the newlyweds over and done with, and the heady moments of the wedding party now passing into a hazy memory, the big question on most commentators’ lips seems to be how well the coalition will fare in daily life as a couple. This question is even more pertinent this time around since the prevailing wisdom seems to be that the eurozone crisis is finally going to make itself felt in Poland, which thus far has managed to remain relatively unaffected.
One of the points of pride of the re-elected Civic Platform leadership is that Poland has, in their words, managed to remain a “green island” in the stormy seas of crisis-rocked Europe. In his parliamentary explication on Friday—a matter-of-course for all newly elected leaders in which a plan is presented for governing the country over the next four-year term—Prime Minister Donald Tusk presented the encouraging statistics matter-of-factly:
“In the years 2008-2011, the cumulated GDP growth in Poland was over 15 percent, 15.4 percent to be exact. The next closest European Union country reached 8 percent over the same four-year period. Slovakia came in second. The average for the European Union during these four years was minus 0.4 percent.”
Little wonder, one might surmise, that voters decided to give them the benefit of the doubt of a second term rather than opt for uncertain change. But change is de rigeur at this stage, according to all top economic experts and analysts if Poland hopes to replicate the successes of years past in what’s expected to be turbulent times ahead. Which is why when you compare the speech of 2008 with that of last Friday’s, the rhetoric has changed. “Reform” has become the buzzword of the day.
Some examples are raising the retirement age to 67 for both women and men (currently at 60 for women and 65 for men); reducing the average time for processing court cases by a whopping one-third; streamlining administrative decisions—an Achilles’ Heel of Polish administration—in ways like introducing caps on the time it takes to issue construction permits; making farmers and clergymen pay social security premiums (both groups have so far been pretty much exempt).
And the list goes on.
Many experts, like professor Leszek Balcerowicz, hail the pro-reform rhetoric. But the former minister of finance, president of the National Bank of Poland and co-author of Poland’s post-communist economic transformation in the early 90s also warns that if these reforms don’t go deeply enough, quickly enough, they could end up disappointingly missing their mark.
Yet Poland’s recent political history shows that governments that press forward with reforms—even good ones—are often punished by an electorate that wants gain with a bare minimum of pain.
Charting the waters of the next four years will doubtlessly be challenging and the eyes of both well-wishers and naysayers are now squarely on the happy couple.
“Reforms or bust” might be a likely bumper sticker as the newlyweds drive off into the sunset.
