A Digest of Political, Economic, Cultural and Historical News from Poland

Published: July 30, 2015

 

"Profound changes can be implemented only within the first few months of the post-election period. Later, the newly elected officials become preoccupied by the ever present and powerful bureaucracy and implementation of changes becomes more and more painful," wrote Bronisław Wildstein in his essay published by the weekly wSieci.

 

The journalist points out the errors and failures of the Civic Platform, Poland’s ruling party of the last 8 years, now stepping down. "The 8 years of Civic Platform's government nearly doubled the national debt. Had the government not raided OFE (Poland’s Open Pensions Fund), taking over the 150 billion PLN that belonged to pensioners, the official national debt would have reached 60 percent of country's gross domestic product, which violates our constitution," says Wildstein and wonders where all that money went. "We have possibly the most expensive roads in Europe, including the exceptionally poor quality highways with ludicrously massive screens in the rural areas, keeping drivers cut off from the rest of the world. We have gigantic sports stadiums, subsidised with taxpayers’ money, and we have aqua parks. However, once innovative and competitive Poland has gradually become a subcontractor to strong economies in Europe, mainly Germany. What is the level of performance in Polish education, health service, transport and army? What about the performance of police and judiciary system? The liability for any malfunctions lies of course with the government, but also with public authorities which help to run the country. With all these failures though, the Civic Platform's primary goal to rid the government of any influence from the Law and Justice party, has been achieved."

 

Now that the Law and Justice Party has won the presidential election, Wildstein advises what changes need to be made. "Trying to restore the country, to bring back the mind-set of self-determination and to reinstate democracy in place of the present oligarchy subservient to murky interests is bound to collide with cliques that dominate in Poland at the moment, causing an inevitable conflict. The Law and Justice needs to act in a revolutionary (or anti-revolutionary, whichever way we want to look at it) way in order to face the dominant establishment. If the party is strong, it will form partnerships with Polish businesses, which are currently struggling. Alliances within other industries are also probable, as long as they lead to re-establishing control over the country. However, it cannot be done without introducing profound changes, especially within public authorities.

 

An agile healthy country should protect its citizens and eradicate abuse from those in power. Rebuilding the country is not the beginning of a dictatorship, as claimed by the current propaganda, but the beginning of pluralism and true democracy. It gives Polish people power and opportunity to oppose the dominance of the current corrupt and demoralized establishment of III RP (Third Republic of Poland). The concern of those stepping up to power should be how to carry out this process, rather than whether to carry it out,” concludes Wildstein.

 

Source: wpolityce.pl
Translation: JD
Photo: www.carpenterandassoc.com