By W.Ż.
8 February 2006

The long anticipated stabilization pact was signed Feb. 2-a political agreement between the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) and Samoobrona and the League of Polish Families (LPR) to defer the prospect of earlier elections. The parliament's life expectancy has been extended for at least one year, however, the coming 12 months cannot be expected to be peaceful.

The basic goals of the agreement are "to ensure Poland political stability, in particular to make actions aimed at reforming the state possible." The stabilization pact is to enable formation of a stable majority in the Sejm and prevent earlier parliamentary elections. Appendices to the agreement include 153 draft bills that the three parties have committed themselves to support during legislative work. The agreement was signed for one year and provides for an extension period.

"We have signed a pact that is intended to terminate the parliamentary crisis and whose realization and implementation in practice means a radical change in our country," said PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński. "That means a completely new situation for the Polish state, a major purge and consolidation and a new economic policy," he added.

"This day will go down in the history of Poland as very important. Today the process of transforming the country into the Fourth Republic of Poland has started, a process that questions the Round Table agreement [concluded at the beginning of 1989 between the communist authorities and the opposition and marking the beginning of the systemic transformation in Poland]," said LPR leader Roman Giertych.

"As of today, all honest Poles, all who acted in compliance with the law, may rest assured. They can hope and feel certain that we will help all those who have sustained the costs of the 17 years of changes, all those who have been given nothing," added Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper. Among the group that has shouldered the costs of the transformation in Poland, Lepper included "old-age and disability pensioners, the jobless, PGR former state farm employees, farmers, workers and all honest people."

Chair of the PiS Parliamentary Caucus Przemysław Gosiewski said that the stabilization agreement was also open to other parliamentary groupings, first and foremost the Polish Peasants' Party (PSL). "New entries into the stabilization pact, the addition of any new appendices or reports does not seem to have much sense any longer and will not take place," Jan Bury, deputy leader of the PSL, replied to Gosiewski's proposal the following day, adding that the decision to pass over the PSL in the stabilization agreement was made by the PiS, whose politicians recognized that Samoobrona and the LPR were enough to secure a majority in the Sejm.

The circumstances surrounding the signature of the pact have been no less controversial than the pact's content. Only journalists from the radical Catholic Radio Maryja and the Telewizja Trwam TV station as well as the Catholic newspaper Nasz Dziennik were invited to witness the signing ceremony in the Sejm building. As a token of protest, journalists of other media boycotted the press conference organized a few minutes later during which the agreement was officially signed. Some journalists left their equipment at the door to the conference room.

"A privilege for one broadcaster contravenes the principles of free competition," said Krystyna Mokrosińska, president of the Polish Journalists Association (SDP) following the incident. According to her, the Act on access to public information has been violated, an act that obliges political parties, among others, to provide information about public affairs. Mokrosińska added, however, that journalists may not boycott an event. "Journalists have the duty to inform. They cannot take offense, because their task is to inform about everything concerning public life," she stressed.

All the media present during the initialing of the stabilization pact were linked to one person-Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, of the Redemptorist Order, the founder of Radio Maryja, who is considered the most controversial religious leader in Poland. Recently, not only the Polish Episcopate but even the Vatican have made statements concerning the inappropriateness of Polish clergy interfering in politics-a fully explicit criticism of the Toruń-based station which regularly hosts top-ranking state officials, including President Lech Kaczyński and Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

Rydzyk, whose station violently attacked the PiS's rivals during the election campaign, is now recognized by many to be the chief promoter of the stabilization pact. Rydzyk himself does not conceal his involvement. During a program on Telewizja Trwam after the pact had been signed, he made a call to the studio to offer thanks for the conclusion of the stabilization agreement. "It turns out that Poles are still able to reach an agreement. You are different-each of the groupings is not quite the same as the second or the third one, but all of them care about the homeland. But those diverse views of problems, the homeland, cannot but enrich and for that we thank you," Rydzyk told the politicians present in the television studio.

Representatives of the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition criticized the stabilization agreement unanimously. Senator from the Civic Platform (PO), Stefan Niesiołowski, in recent months an especially ardent critic of PiS policy, described the circumstances surrounding the agreement's signature as "peculiar." Deputy Sejm Speaker Bronisław Komorowski of the PO said that the PiS-Samoobrona-LPR coalition "has been cobbled together with Father Tadeusz Rydzyk's active participation." Leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) Wojciech Olejniczak said that as a result of the manner in which the agreement had been concluded "some citizens will be treated better, while others-worse."

It is still uncertain whether signing the stabilization pact will resolve the crisis affecting the present parliamentary term. According to Andrzej Urbański, head of the President's Office, Lech Kaczyński is currently analyzing the stabilization agreement. Two weeks from Jan. 31 marks the deadline for a presidential decision to shorten the parliamentary term.

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