[A-List] Fw: Poland: another rightward turn

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Polish premier finds necessity is the mother of political reinvention
By Jan Cienski
Financial Times; Oct 23, 2003

Leszek Miller, Poland's embattled prime minister, is facing a growing
rebellion from within his own leftwing Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party,
as well as from powerful labour unions, as he tries to break with his
socialist past and impose spending cuts aimed at halting a runaway budget
deficit.

The struggle with his own party over the deficit is just the latest of a
growing avalanche of problems besetting Mr Miller, which include a bitter
and increasingly lonely battle over the European constitution, multiplying
corruption scandals, and falling opinion polls.

The signs of fatigue are evident when Mr Miller enters a room, showing
little of the spark that helped him become one of the country's leading
political figures.

But the cascade of troubles is forcing Mr Miller into a radical
transformation, turning him into a neo-liberal who supports spending cuts,
low taxes, deregulation and economic growth.

It is a journey made by many leaders on the European left, including Gerhard
Schröder, the German chancellor. "There is an old saying, that the right
grows the economy and the left distributes the results of that growth," says
Mr Miller in an interview with the Financial Times.

"But for the Polish and the European left that has to change. Polish society
has to understand that when the left governs it means economic growth, a
fall in unemployment and taxes. Our task is to link high economic growth
with the principles of social justice."

This is just the latest mutation for the 57-year-old politician, who worked
his way from an electrician in a wool factory to the politburo in communist
Poland, to government leader of a democratic country. But Mr Miller's latest
incarnation is one of necessity, as it becomes clear his government must
take action to have any hope of a decent showing in the 2005 elections.

The most immediate problem is a massive deficit, estimated at 45.5bn zlotys
($11.6bn, ?9.8bn, £6.8bn), or 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product, for
2004. Mr Miller says that for the first two years of his government little
was done to reform spending because economic growth was stagnant.

Now the economy has started to grow again, with 3.5 per cent GDP growth
predicted this year and 5 per cent in 2004. "Because we have economic
growth, inflation is low, taxation is lower, Poland's economic prospects are
improving, so this is the time to begin rationalising spending," says Mr
Miller.

The prime minister has seized on the spending programme drafted by his
economy minister, Jerzy Hausner, which promises to restructure Poland's
welfare state. Women's retirement age will be evened up with men; disability
payments will be tightened up; health care, state railways, coal mines and
agricultural social insurance will be reformed.

The reforms, due to be enacted next year, have already sparked violent
protests from miners. Mr Miller is determined that the programme will pass,
even appealing for help from rightwing parties in parliament. The cabinet
has been browbeaten into supporting the scheme but SLD backbenchers, as well
as party activists, are increasingly dismayed at the government's direction.

Last week two prominent activists called for Mr Miller's resignation,
sparking a political firestorm that the prime minister had to quell while on
a visit to Brussels.

But the problem for those who want to get rid of Mr Miller is that there are
no alternatives in the SLD. Cabinet members who once appeared potential
rivals have been sidelined by various crises and scandals.

In a bid to recapture some of its dwindling supporters the government is
planning potentially popular social legislation, such as easing access to
abortion and allowing homosexual civil unions.

"The SLD, which is often criticised in its own ranks [on the grounds] that
the Hausner programme is far from being leftwing, is trying to balance that
lack with a more leftwing social programme," says Andrzej Rychard, a
sociologist at Poland's Academy of Sciences.

Tired and hounded by problems, Mr Miller has cast his lot with a solution
opposed to everything he stood for as a young Communist party activist.

But he believes it could put Poland on the path to successful entry into the
European Union in May.