Because the Pool Was Too Small

There are six candidates. Or rather, there is the mayor and five candidates who must defeat him. Dariusz “Tiger” Michalczewski once said of his opponent before a championship fight: “I am already the champion; he is the one who has to try to take the title from me.”

The five candidates must accomplish precisely that. How are they doing it? Either they condemn everything bearing Piotr Roman’s trademark, or they employ praise-like criticism beginning with the words: Piotr Roman is a good mayor, but…

Total criticism makes one begin to sympathize with the victim of the attacks. Praise-like criticism suggests that Piotr Roman really is a good mayor. Using chess terminology popularized by one of the candidates, one may conclude that the opponents’ situation is a stalemate. And Piotr Roman has so far been calmly waiting for the final contest, when the ballot papers flow into the ballot boxes, without losing any of his authority.

Fake investments

The candidates have differing views of the investments carried out in the city during Piotr Roman’s term. In general, they try to convince voters that not everything that glitters is gold, especially when Piotr Roman claims the credit for that shine.

According to the candidates, some investments are very bad, while others merely have many shortcomings. The fountain ranks among the worst. This innocent water feature, which draws children and their parents, clearly has the poorest ratings. Many people dislike the fountain simply because they associate it with Piotr Roman, ignoring the fact that when it was switched on, it was the Market Square’s biggest attraction. Residents came to it on hot days. It therefore fulfilled its purpose, and thanks to it the Market Square began to come alive. The paving in the Market Square also took a beating, mainly because women damage their heels on it. The city’s revitalization has poor ratings because the city is dug up, there is too much granite paving, and everything is too expensive in general. The swimming pool, or aquapark as some prefer to call it, has slightly better reviews. In general, it is wonderful that it is being built, but it is too late, too small, lacks a large car park, and is too far inside the city. The International Ceramics Centre is not international enough, and a municipal restaurant nearly opened there—one that was supposed to destroy the city’s entrepreneurs, mainly those in the restaurant business. The Peaceful Old Age Home is received best, although it could be slightly larger and slightly closer to the city.

Supporters of one of the candidates call the mayor Bob the Builder. It would be difficult to create more positive publicity for a rival candidate. Bob is a likeable cartoon character who tries to work as well as possible, always has good ideas, and is friendly to boot. Children adore him. Yet the Bolesławiec Bob, the candidates point out, has created bad investments in our city—ones children are not supposed to like at all.

Bad debt

The city is in debt. The debt is tragically high: over 70 million złotys. Piotr Roman allowed this to happen. That is as much as can be understood from the candidates’ explanations. After that, the purpose of taking on the debt and the actual threat it poses to the city, if any, become blurred. On one candidate’s blog, under the heading “Debts First,” we read: “The aforementioned […] issue of the city’s debt and Deputy Mayor Ogrodnik’s views on debt matters (he claims [… that] despite the city’s projected debt of 71 million złotys at year’s end, as forecast by the Regional Chamber of Audit, Bolesławiec residents can sleep soundly) is an example of how the current authorities view Bolesławiec.” The candidate then turned to analyzing Ogrodnik’s personality, explaining nothing more about the debt.

On another candidate’s blog, the matter is treated just as briefly. The candidate gives the debt as 71 million złotys and adds: “The city’s current financial situation has been described synthetically in the table on page 11 of the aforementioned order

, so I will not summarize it.” Only in an entry titled “Wisely… or Less Wisely, That Is, the EU and 70 Million Down the Drain” does the author explain that the investments are bad. Therefore, the debt is bad too. Everything was done so that the mayor could shine before the election and win for a third time. The money was therefore spent on re-election, at the expense of quality and reliability.[chodzi o uchwałę Rady Miasta i zarządzenie prezydenta – przyp. autorka]

Will such an explanation convince voters who are already beginning to use some of the investments? The studios at the International Ceramics Centre are bursting at the seams. Eighty people signed up for film workshops with a superbly equipped studio. The opening of the pool will certainly be a major sensation, just like the installation of a 3D projector in the municipal cinema. Soon families will begin strolling through the planty, which are becoming more beautiful before their eyes. And if a candidate tells them that this is precisely what we went into debt for, most of them will reply that it is a good thing.

Friendly campaign teams

Piotr Roman is building his electorate by investing in the city. One may argue about whether the investments are better or worse. Nothing else will be done by whoever succeeds him. But things are supposed to be better, as his five rivals declare. The question is: better for whom? For the residents, of course. But has any committee surveyed the residents’ moods and expectations? Józef Król, the SLD candidate, claimed in one interview that he had questioned approximately 200 people. We do not know these surveys, nor do we know exactly what he asked about; such a survey cannot be found on his official website either.

The candidates are reluctant to talk about professionalizing their campaign teams. They turn up their noses at spin doctors and outside advisers. They surround themselves only with friends whose primary qualification seems to be love for the candidate. There is no research, no polls, no professional methods of measuring public opinion. We do not know how many people would vote for Piotr Roman. No one asks Bolesławiec residents what they liked and disliked during the mayor’s term, which investments they use and which they consider failures. Whether they want a mayor who is a specialist, a local-government official, an entrepreneur, or an artist. The only source of information appears to be friendly advice and heartfelt opinions. This boils down to repeating stereotypes, believing anonymous forum posts—now most often published by campaign staff—and fulfilling the whims of male and female friends.

There is also the candidates’ decision to declare themselves at five minutes to midnight. Only the Civic Platform candidate Dariusz Kwaśniewski officially announced in February this year that he was running. The rest sprang up with their candidacies like devils from a box about three months before the election. Why, when their main rival, Piotr Roman, has been campaigning for himself for four years, ever since he won the last election?

Reaching voters honestly

The candidates chose conventional slogans such as “Residents First,” “Together We Can Do More,” “Bolesławiec for the Young and for Generations,” “It Is Worth Working for People,” or the enigmatic “We Believe in Unrestricted Development” and “In Spite of Everything.” Presenting their programs, ideas, and visions for the city is worse. A friend, but a specialist, will teach them how to communicate with voters. Even one who explains that the human brain absorbs only what is new and useful and rejects what is old and useless amid an overload of information. The criteria by which it makes its selection are entirely subjective. This is basic knowledge that should be available, for example, to teachers, so they can teach more effectively. Voters are not stupid or lazy. They have too much on their minds to study the intricacies of programs that at first glance look as though they were copied from one another.

Voters will remember in the simplest form whatever a candidate puts before them. And this is where the candidate’s honesty begins. Either the candidate will educate themselves on how to communicate with people and reach them in order to explain most precisely what the issue is, or they will offer a jumble of stereotypes, populist slogans, or banal truths. Perhaps one of the campaign teams will allocate money to professionally research public opinion. The results could prove extremely useful and fascinating for all of us.

(report by Grażyna Hanaf)