Rampant Corruption and Lack of Clarity in Poland

[Jaga]

Poland needs to learn democracy. As I wrote in another forum there is a lot of worries among my Polish friends about a future of Poland.

The government pushed through the appointment of five new judges to the Constitutional Court, without hearings or debate. Members of the opposition left before voting started but they had no majority to prevent passing the vote!

What is really strange.... the salaries of the judges who are like supreme court in the US are not publicly known.
But the group called Citizens of Poland Watchdog asked for the salaries to be released since these are public officials and for now the court agreed but their decisions can be still changed.

here is more in Polish
prawo.money.pl/aktualnosci/wiadomosci/artykul/trybunal-konstytucyjny-musi-ujawnic,129,0,1971841.html

[pieter]

I agree with you Jaga. I hope that Poland will not return to the chaos and the corrupt and nepotist years of the peoples republic (in a new rightwing nationalist form. Rightwing Polish Roman-Catholic Nationalistic Patroitism instaid of Polish Communist, socialist patriotism of the Peoples Republic), or the petty power politics, corruption and nepotism of earlier periods in this young new democracy (1989-2015). I sincerly hope that Poland will not become a second Bulgaria, Romania or Hungary.

Hungary with it's Ultra-nationalist climate, with hysterical fascist (pre-war) elements in it, is not a good example for Poland. Poles are not Hungarians, nor Russians, Slovaks, Germans or Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians or Ukrainians. Poland is a large country, has a large agricultural sector, a sea connection, and the benefit of being close to Germany, Czech Republic, the Baltic states (with their technological innovation, and Western-democracies), and the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg), Denmark, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Italy relatively close by.

It is very important that leftwing and center-leftwing political parties, movements and groups will be built up, revived and developed in Poland for the sake of political balance, political stability, pluralism, and the fact that a modern democracy needs Countervailing powers like a strong opposition in parliament, human rights organisations, unions and for instance progressive youth movements. I hope that in Poland, non-communist leftwing parties with roots in Social-democracy and Polish leftwing social-liberalism will grow again to give Polish voters a real chance of having a democratic vote.

The separation of powers in Poland is at stake due to the fact that the new Prawo i Sprawiedliwość government pushed through the appointment of five new judges to the Constitutional Court, without hearings or debate. This is a complete violation of the trias politica principle. The state is divided into branches, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with the powers associated with the other branches. The typical division of branches is into a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary.

Source: Wikipedia

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

I hope that the Together Party (Polish: Partia Razem), Your Movement (Polish: Twój Ruch), Democratic Left Alliance (Polish: Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD) and Labour United (Polish: Unia Pracy, UP) and the Greens (Polish: Partia Zieloni) and maybe a stronger United Left list (Polish: Zjednoczona Lewica, ZL) will grow again.


Jaga posted this interesting thread about the Together Party: jagahost.proboards.com/thread/18550/party-leader-trying-electoral-failure

[pieter]

The youtube chanal of Razem:

www.youtube.com/channel/UC0_HxMeYxDY-8-6NJ_umSVA

[pieter]

Jaga,

It is time for progressives, leftists and left liberals in Poland to redefine themselves. Socialism, communism and classical liberalism came into existence in the 19th century Europe due to the fact that these ideologies, systems and political movements were needed as competitors of the Monarchism, conservatism, Nationalism and harsh exploitive Capitalism of that time. The Left and Center-Left has to reinvent itself in Poland, because reasonable and clear left opposition is needed in Poland. They should develop and invent a 21th century Polish leftwing ideology and practical political direction which works in 2015. The Old Left was from the 19th and 20th centuries, the New Left is the Left of the 21th century and thus connected to the digital age, multi-media, social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and other chanaks) and the internet democracy.

The left can't fall back on a communist heritage in Poland, because the reality of the Polish Peoples Republic doesn't exist anymore, nor a traditional Marxist-leninist, social-democratic or socialist electorate. Polish people are pragmatic, individualistic and Roman-Catholic. The Polish left should examine and research the history of the left in Western-Europe in the Second half of the 20th century after the Second World War. The Polish left could learn from the political history of Social-democracy, the leftwing liberals (Liberal democrats), the Greens and movements like New Left, New labour and New Democrats and the Third Way.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Labour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way

The Polish Left should focus on it's base, it's grassroots movement, it's message, it's local, regional and national message. It should develop a leftwing Patriotic message to counterweight the rightwing nationalist message of the present government. It should have a real social leftwing alternative to the socialist policies of the present rightwing government, which is rather socialist in it's economical policies. The left is good in Agitprop, in making political adds, in communicating messages to the workers and middle class, and in the long term the left will return to the Polish parliament and probably govern again. The further the time goes the less people with roots in the former communist Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP; Polish: Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) will remain in the leftwing parties and a new generation will take it's place. That will give new legitimation to the left. Many Poles don't vote left today due to the role former Polish communists stil play in Leftwing Parties like SLD, Unia Pracy and PPS (Polish: Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS). People like Józef Oleksy (22 June 1946 – 9 January 2015), Leszek Miller, Marek Borowski, Adam Gierek, Bogusław Liberadzki, Marek Siwiec and others.

A problem of the Polish left is that many politicians of the left look boring, have messages which aren't popular for many Polish workers and middle class people, and often have to much progressive Western-European looking ideas. They should look at the succes of PO (Civic Platform) during the 2007 general elections. And how Prawo i Sprawiedliwość won the elections this year.

Center left today

The spectrum of left-wing politics ranges from center-left to far left (or ultra-left). The term center left describes a position within the political mainstream. The terms far left and ultra-left refer to positions that are more radical. The center-left includes social democrats, social liberals, progressives and also some democratic socialists and greens (in particular the eco-socialists). Center-left supporters accept market allocation of resources in a mixed economy with a significant public sector and a thriving private sector. Center-left policies tend to favour limited state intervention in matters pertaining to the public interest.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

Pieter, I agree with your statetemnt:
+++It is time for progressives, leftists and left liberals in Poland to redefine themselves. +++

referring to the corruption. Unfortunately every Polish government until now seem to take advantage of the fact that they can use the system to give themselves and their friends extra bonuses. This is probably even worse on the left than on the right. I do not include RAZEM, since these people are new, but previous governments of PO (Citizens Platform) and even Partia Wolnosci (Freedom Platform) and it includes the Left which came from communistic party.
So there need to be a big change there.

[pieter]

Yes, we agree on that. I know that SLD was not free from corruption either. I remember the Rywin affair. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rywin_affair )


Lew Rywin (born November 10, 1945 in a Nizhnyi Alkeyev, Siberia, USSR) is a Polish film producer associated with Heritage Films (est. 1991). He has also been a member of the Polish Radio and TV committee and worked in an agency, Poltel, producing for Polish state-run TV.

He participated in producing such films as Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, Roman Polański's The Pianist, and Jan Jakub Kolski's Pornografia. His last film was never produced. It was about the life of Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat (with producers Harris Salomon and Abi Sirokh). The film was titled Love is a Survivor and was later changed to The Flower of the Fence. Altogether, he has served in a producer role in the making of 27 movies.

Jozef Oleksy, a Polish left-wing politician, former chairman of the Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD) and from 1968 to 1990 he a member of the communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), confessed about corruption in the leftwing SLD party.


Jozef Oleksy

A record of a private conversation Jozef Oleksy had with one of Poland's richest businessmen Aleksander Gudzowaty "leaked" to the media on 22 March 2007. The tapes suggested corruption in the SLD party. Oleksy accused former president Aleksander Kwaśniewski of illegal financial procedures, and spoke very harshly of then SLD leader Wojciech Olejniczak and several other members of the party. He soon left the SLD.


Aleksander Gudzowaty (September 22, 1938 - February 14, 2013) was a Polish businessman and economist, and one of Poland's wealthiest people.

Oleksy died in Warsaw, Poland, from cancer, aged 68.