Democratic Party - demokraci.pl

The Democratic Party (Partia Demokratyczna - demokraci.pl) is a liberal party in Poland, publicly announced on February 28 and formally established on May 9, 2005 as an "enlargement" of the Freedom Union (Unia Wolności), which it legally succeeds. The new party was formed on the initiative of UW chairman Władysław Frasyniuk, together with the economist Jerzy Hausner, until recently a member of the governing post-communist Alliance of the Democratic Left (SLD), and prominent former UW member Tadeusz Mazowiecki. It was since joined by prime minister Marek Belka and centrist members of the Alliance of the Democratic Left. Although it received considerable public attention and support from many Polish intellectuals, its prospects in the Polish parliamentary election, 2005 are as yet unclear.

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The core of the Democratic Party is made up by the members of the Freedom Union (Unia Wolności, UW), which had so far been the most important liberal group in the Polish political landscape. Since its inception in 1994, the UW had to cope with internal frictions between various factions: Free market liberals (such as Leszek Balcerowicz), those proposing a liberal economic agenda in a more conservative, bourgeois guise (such as Donald Tusk), more progressive social liberals such as Jacek Kuroń, and intellectual former civil rights activists such as Bronisław Geremek or Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who also has a strong background in liberal Catholicism and leans towards Christian democracy. In 2001, these frictions - combined with the prospect of a devastating defeat in the upcoming election - led to an exodus of conservative and market-liberal members around Tusk who joined former members of the UW's senior coalition partner, the conservative AWS, to form the new Citizens' Platform (PO) party. In the 2001 general elections, the Freedom Union received only 3.1% and thus failed to cross the 5% threshold required to gain entry to Parliament. With Władysław Frasyniuk replacing Geremek as chairman, the Freedom Union continued to exist as a social liberal party, but it lost much of its relevance in Polish politics. It consistently enjoys the support of approximately 3% of voters. However, surprisingly, the party managed to cross the required 5% threshold in the 2004 European Parliament elections, receiving 7% of votes and 4 out of 54 seats reserved for Poland in the European Parliament as part of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, of which it is a member.

On February 29, 2005, Frasyniuk surprised the Polish public with the initiative to merge the UW into a new liberal party to be called "the Democrats", which he presented with Mazowiecki and Jerzy Hausner. Mazowiecki had left the UW in November 2002 after it had left the conservative-christian democrat European People's Party in favour of the liberal European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, and entered coalitions with the post-communist Alliance of the Democratic Left (SLD) and the populist peasant Self-Defence party on the local level. Hausner, on the other hand, is an economist with a post-communist background. As minister of economic affairs and employment in the governments of Leszek Miller and Marek Belka, he conceived the so-called Hausner Plan (Plan Hausnera), a programme for liberal reform concerning state-owned business, public administration, and social security. After his reform met with persistent opposition, he left the SLD in a much debated move on 7 February and resigned from office on March 30, 2005. From the beginning, Frasyniuk, Hausner and Mazowiecki appealed to prime minister Marek Belka to join the party. Belka, another former SLD member, had left the party in the early 1990s, but joined Leszek Miller's government as a non-party minister of economic affairs in 2001 before resigning the following year. After an interlude as economic director in the interim coalition administration of Iraq in 2003, Belka returned to Poland to become non-party head of a SLD minority government in 2004. The involvement of Hausner and Belka as prominent post-communists marks a first in Polish politics: For the first time, a political party is overcoming the divide between the camps of the former government and opposition camps. Also, while the UW was a somewhat elitist party appealing mostly to educated and affluent urban voters, the PD is trying to establish itself as a popular party with a broad appeal, which caters for social liberals (Frasyniuk), pragmatic market liberals (Hausner) and centrist Christian democrats (Mazowiecki).

As of 27 May, 2005, the party claims to have 13,000+ members, out of which 8,000 were members of the Freedom Union. It defines itself as, "above all, a group of young people not previously involved in politics, which at the same time is drawing on the best traditions of the liberal-democrat milieu around the Freedom Union" [1] (http://demokraci.pl/index.php?do=standard&navi=0001,0007).

A manifesto entitled "Development through Democracy" issued by the party in February 2005 was signed by a broad range of Polish intellectuals and artists, including Paweł Huelle (writer), Marek Edelman (physician, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising), Agnieszka Holland (director), Marek Kondrat (director), Kazimierz Kutz (director), Jan Miodek (linguist), Daniel Olbrychski (actor), Jerzy Pilch (writer), Henryk Samsonowicz (historian), Jerzy Szacki (sociologist). Notably, Lech Wałęsa's son Jarosław also signed the manifesto.

Political statements made by the Democrats include:

Support for the European constitution in the referendum in October 2005
Tax cuts, introduction of an 18% flat tax on incomes
Reduction of non-wage labour costs, tax remissions for business starters
Creation of new jobs, e.g. through a first-year exemption from social security contributions for graduate entrants
Appointment of an ombudsman to represent entrepreneurs damnified by fiscal or other authorities
Increased spending on education
Studentship funds for rural youth
Compulsory eduction starting at age 6 (presently 7), popularisation of instruction in two foreign languages at primary school level
Improvement and nationwide standardisation of health services
Establishment of a public hospital network not subject to privatisation
Reduction in telecommunication costs to facilitate internet access

Contents

1 Persons

1.1 Members of Polish Parliament (Sejm)
1.2 Members of Polish Senate of the former Freedom Union
1.3 Members of the European Parliament of the former Freedom Union

2 See also

3 External Links

Persons

Władysław Frasyniuk - chairman, former chairman of the Freedom Union
Jerzy Hausner - vice chairman, former minister for economic affairs and employment
Tadeusz Mazowiecki - honorary chairman (patron), former prime minister

Marek Belka - current prime minister, no official party function

Members of Polish Parliament (Sejm)

none in this term, since 2001

Members of Polish Senate of the former Freedom Union

Olga Teresa Krzyzanowska - caucus vicechairperson
Dorota Simonides
Kazimierz Kutz
Andrzej Jan Wielowieyski - caucus chairman
Grazyna Ewa Staniszewska (until June 13 2004, elected to the European Parliament)

Members of the European Parliament of the former Freedom Union

Bronisław Geremek, historian and politician, ex-minister of foreign affairs
Jan Kułakowski, journalist, ex Poland-EU negotiator
Janusz Onyszkiewicz, mathematician and politician, vicepresident of the European Parliament
Grażyna Staniszewska, politician, senator