Poland

Parliamentary elections were held in September 2001 and resulted in a new government taking control. It was led by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and was essentially composed of ex-communists with support from the Polish Peasants’ Party. The previous centre-right government, headed by Jerzy Buzek, was ousted. The Solidarity Movement, the most significant force in Polish politics for over ten years, failed to win any seats in the 460-seat Sejm and is now considered a spent force. Some individuals from Solidarity, who left the party when it splintered earlier in the year, left to form the Civic Platform. President Kwaśniewski appointed SLD’s leader Leszek Miller as the new prime minister in October. The coalition faltered in March 2003 when the Polish Peasants’ Party was expelled from government after failing to fall into line over tax proposals. Miller continued as the leader of a minority government. In December 2002 Poland was formally invited to join the European Union; membership of the EU was publicly advocated by Kwaśniewski, Miller, and by Pope John Paul II.

In a referendum in June 2003, 77.5 per cent of voters backed EU membership, with a turnout of 59 per cent. Rising unemployment and mounting economic problems ahead of Poland’s entry into the EU led to widespread dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Leszek Miller’s government. In August 2003 about 2,000 Polish troops were deployed in the south-central security zone in Iraq, following the US-led war against Saddam Hussein. From October 2003, Poland tightened border controls on the eastern frontiers, with visitors from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine requiring visas. In March 2004, Miller announced his intention to resign on May 2. A few days later the president named Marek Belka, an economist, as his successor. On May 1, 2004 Poland became a member of the EU. Despite the president’s backing, Belka was only endorsed by the Sejm at a second vote and he failed to win support for his proposed reforms, provoking him into trying to resign in May 2005—Kwaśniewski rejected the resignation. At the September 2005 election a majority of seats was won by the Law and Justice Party, a party set up in 2001 by the Kaczyński twins, Lech and Jarosław. Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz became the country’s prime minister. The later stages of Kwaśniewski’s presidency were marked by an increasingly difficult relationship with Russia. Kwaśniewski’s role as an arbiter in the disputed 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, and his warm relations with the eventual winner Viktor Yushchenko, aroused suspicion in the Russian government as President Putin had openly backed Yushchenko’s opponent. At the Polish presidential election in October 2005, the candidate of the conservative Law and Justice Party, Lech Kaczyński, was elected as Kwaśniewski’s successor after a run-off vote. He was sworn in as president in December 2005. Marcinkiewicz stood down as prime minister in July 2006 and was replaced by the president’s twin, Jarosław Kaczyński. The Law and Justice Party served in coalition with the Self-Defence Party and the League of Polish Families but the agreement fell apart in August 2007, signalling early elections. The Civic Platform won more than 41 per cent of the vote with Law and Justice taking 32 per cent. Jarosław Kaczyński stepped down and was replaced as prime minister by Donald Tusk of the Civic Platform, whose party entered into coalition with the Polish People’s Party.