POLAND:Former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski warns that re-election of the prime minister in the autumn would cause a fresh wave of emigration, writes Derek Scallyin Warsaw
Ireland can expect a fresh wave of Polish emigrants disillusioned about their prospects at home if Jaroslaw Kaczynski is re-elected prime minister this autumn, according to former president Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Two years after Kaczynski's national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party won the general election, the economy is booming but the country is convulsed with political scandal and now faces early elections.
Now Kwasniewski (52) has formed an alliance of left-wing parties to convince voters that, in Kaczynski hands, Poland will continue its drift to the periphery of Europe.
"It's like a tragic comedy. If you have bad atmosphere and no chances for independent thinking people and a free style of life, people will leave," said Kwasniewski in his Warsaw office. "Today we have two million young people abroad, soon we will have more. With Kaczynski, Poland has no chance to use its new opportunities in the EU."
The last two years in Poland have seen unending political drama. The main feature was a real-life Polish version of The Untouchables with dramatic televised arrests of shady business men and former government ministers.
The central narrative in this drama is Kaczynski's personal war on what he calls the "lying" liberal elite and the "Uklad", a cosy cartel of ex-communists, business leaders and their journalist friends who carved up Poland between them after 1990 at the expense of ordinary people.
Opinion is divided about the true extent of this network, but all agree that Kaczynski used the "Uklad" to great effect, shattering the democratic liberal consensus dominant in Poland since 1990.
"Kaczynski's political messages touch real existing social pains - the poverty of many Poles stressed by the transformation - things about which there was no serious debate before," says Jacek Zakowski, a political commentator with Polityka magazine.
"Kaczynski shows them a populistic way to deal with those responsible for their pain without coming up with real answers."
With the long-term goals of Nato and EU membership realised, the idea of a war on corruption and a new "fourth republic" Poland was an attractive proposition to a wide span of voters: older Poles unhappy with their post-1990 circumstances and younger voters unhappy with their prospects.
Political analysts say that few of these voters will be perturbed by allegations that this war was fought using phone tapping, surveillance and other methods contrary to democratic state principles.
"PiS core voters don't care about democracy. This overstepping of state instruments to obtain a good objective is not seen as any crime considering that, when they started two years ago, corruption was everywhere," says Jadwiga Staniszkis, a sociologist at Warsaw University. She is one of the people who helped Jaroslaw Kaczynski formulate the ideology of the "fourth republic" after recognising a talent that his political opponents have only fully appreciated since he took office: an ability to play several chess games simultaneously.
In power, he has kept the opposition off balance with a permanent state of political crisis. At the same time, he has established a loyal media court of at least three newspapers and state broadcasters.
Simultaneously he has kept his populist coalition partners close to him politically to woo away their voters and endanger their parliamentary future.
Despite negative headlines abroad and an endless stream of scandals at home, polls show that Kaczynski is facing into this election as popular as on election night 2005.
But many former political allies are disillusioned with the PiS government, in particular Kaczynski's weakness for rhetoric over policy and virtual politics over real governance.
"I know Jaroslaw Kaczynski for a very long time and he's very intelligent in his abstract will for things but gets bored with the details," said Staniszkis in a Warsaw cafe.
"If he admits that they have this democratic system slowing them down and preventing radical changes, because that's what democracy is about, he has to admit he is unable to deliver all he promised. He'd rather be Dirty Harry: 'I had to do it, I'm sorry, but I wanted changes'."
Things look a lot different within the PiS camp, where close allies of Jaroslaw Kaczynski view the early election as not a sign of failure but a show of strength, of the party's iron will to fight corruption.
"We didn't agree that some people in Poland are beyond the law and we are prepared to pay a high price to keep this pledge, even to lose power if necessary," says Aleksandra Natalli-Swiat, a PiS MP and member of the parliamentary public finance committee.
"We want early elections, we aren't afraid of putting it to the people, and PiS will win those elections."
PiS politicians derive confidence from the strong Polish economy, which has flourished in spite of the political crises and, according to economists, even because of new government measures to lower wage costs, control the budget deficit and steer unemployment below 10 per cent for the first time in years.
"Our opponents said a PiS government would lead to economic catastrophe," said Natalli-Swiat. "Two or three years ago people were looking for jobs, now employers are looking for employees and wages are rising."
But like Kaczynski himself, his party is divided between those who relish his harsh rhetoric and those who prefer intellectual debate and the less spectacular process of governing that has helped boost the economy.
Analysts suggest this latter group may break away after an election to support the conservative liberal Civic Platform (PO) and LiD, an alliance of Poland's fragmented left-wing parties lead by Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Poland's left - pro-EU and economically liberal - sees itself as a better fit for the PO than PiS, which marries conservative values with etatism.
But liberal social and economic policies make it a challenge for the opposition to convince voters that they represent their best interests.
This voter doubt will increase when Kaczynski warns Poles that a vote for ex-communists like Kwasniewski is a step backward.
Kwasniewski stresses that after two terms as president he is not running for prime minister. And he believes that younger generations of Poles are ready to move beyond cold war divisions and are increasingly convinced that Jaroslaw Kaczynski's cure for corruption - strong government control in all areas of life - is worse than the sickness.
"His party is against the modernisation of Poland and this concept of fourth republic is a step backward," said Kwasniewski.
As Poland gears up for another election campaign, the opposition fears that voters will not be open to serious political debate, that after two years of political mudslinging, they will stay at home on election day. Low turnout was the key to the 2005 PiS election victory and could swing the election again.
The political obituaries of this Polish government have already been written, but Jaroslaw Kaczynski's opponents know it is too soon to do the same for him.