Twenty candidates for city councillor and Bogusław Nowak, also running in the presidential election, did not appear out of nowhere. Although they found their way onto the political menu some three months before the election, the ingredients had been prepared much earlier. Who was the head chef? Who enjoyed this dish? And who will it harm? Let’s look for the answers.
For starters: Entrepreneurship in politics
In 2002, local entrepreneurs hoped that the arrangements would change and that the new authorities would support them. In his election program, Piotr Roman placed support for entrepreneurship first. He wrote: “We know that 95% of the Bolesławiec market consists of small service providers, merchants and entrepreneurs. […] We are counting on the entrepreneurship of Bolesławiec residents. We will support all local initiatives aimed at development. We particularly want to reward and promote the most valuable ones. [..] The group of expenditure instruments for supporting entrepreneurship also includes information and promotional activities.”
Small business owners, including Bogusław Nowak (who runs his own business in Bolesławiec, into which he probably invested his life’s savings), put their trust in Piotr Roman and his “time for change.” However, the changes that came did not satisfy everyone. It turned out that the mayor was implementing support for local entrepreneurship in a completely different way than the entrepreneurs had imagined. Piotr Roman’s consolidation of power and cementing of his position eliminated many of his backers from the 2002 campaign.
Entrepreneurs increasingly felt like cash cows, whose only right and obligation was to send their taxes to the city treasury. They were satisfied neither with support in the form of the “Mayor’s Award” – an annual gala where one receives an envelope from Piotr Roman and a flower from the current director of Bolesławiecki Ośrodek Kultury – nor with information and promotional activities limited to printing brochures and purchasing pens bearing the city’s logo.
Entrepreneurs wanted the city to advertise their businesses or enable them to make money. In general, they wanted the taxes they paid to be balanced by the opportunity to earn money in the city. Individuals who carried out brilliant ideas were pushed aside. This happened to Krystyna Gay-Kutschenreiter (the originator and creator of the formula for the International Ceramic Workshops) and Krystyna Juszkiewicz, who created the Blues nad Bobrem workshops and festival. Initiatives such as the nationwide limerick competition run by Józefa Witas also collapsed.
In the 2006 campaign, entrepreneurs and people from the cultural sphere united with Platforma Obywatelska and Karol Stasik, Piotr Roman’s main opponent. Bogusław Nowak, who was running for city council at the time, explained his decision to oppose the mayor in an advertising spot.
“I returned to Bolesławiec eagerly and saw many positives, although people had been broken by the transformation. I strongly supported Piotr Roman. This decision today is one great pain. Today there is no contact whatsoever with the city office. Piotr Roman has dug in at his position. We have been pushed away,” Nowak said at the time.
A pinch of Via Sudetica and a flour roux
The Bolesławiec Center for Local Initiatives “Via Sudetica” is a group bringing together various people (restaurateurs, hoteliers, ceramic artists and people involved in culture). The group’s goal is to showcase the advantages of the city and region and to cooperate with all entities committed to enhancing the appeal of staying in our city.
Formally, the president of Via Sudetica is Krzysztof Krzemiński (with Krystyna Juszkiewicz and Paweł Apanasewicz as vice-presidents), but Bogusław Nowak has always been the informal leader and face of Via Sudetica.
The association initiated its activities in the summer of 2006. The fight was over allowing Bolesławiec food-service businesses to operate stalls during the Ceramic Festival. The conflict with the then director of BOK, Ewa Zbroja, who was supposed to cooperate with the food-service operators, came to light during the election. Piotr Roman was accused of claiming that Ewa Zbroja was doing a poor job and was unable to reach an agreement with Bolesławiec entrepreneurs. As a result, catering at the Ceramic Festival was handled by someone from outside Bolesławiec.
The members of Via Sudetica declared political neutrality. In the 2006 elections, the association did not support any candidate. However, many of its members, particularly Bogusław Nowak, were strongly involved in opposing Piotr Roman. It was Nowak, together with a group of friends affiliated with Via Sudetica, who brought Gliniada into being—a parade born of a love of clay.
In 2007, the first parade made its way through the streets of Bolesławiec. In 2008, the parade went to Berlin for the Carnival of Cultures, where it took a high place among the other groups. That same year, the first Glinolud wedding took place in the town square in front of the cameras of nationwide media outlets (TVN, Polsat, TVP). Piotr Roman himself officiated at the wedding. In fact, he did so twice. The idea of Glinolud weddings was repeated the following year (Bogusław Nowak’s son entered into marriage).
Councillor Nowak was, however, exceptionally dissatisfied with the assistance he received from the city in 2009. During a City Council session, he accused the mayor of providing insufficient support for this local initiative. “This year, we were exceptionally disappointed with our cooperation with the city,” Nowak said at the session at the time.
Bogusław Nowak accused the mayor of the fact that the 15,000 zlotys transferred from the city coffers to Gliniada were only enough to cover organizational costs, and not to pay the people working on organizing the event. “Neither we nor anyone from ‘Via Sudetica’ received a penny, ladies and gentlemen,” Nowak explained. “For three years, we have been doing the work and getting our asses wet for free, to promote the city and to the glory of the many people who work here.”
Who is supposed to pay for the dinner they were invited to?
The main subject of the dispute is the lack of complete funding for Gliniada from the local government. This became a bone of contention between the mayor and Nowak and his supporters. Although the conflict is still being presented as the mayor’s failure to care about people with ideas.
This year, the District Office financed the Gliniada and provided substantive support. In total, Via Sudetica received around 33,000 zlotys for the event (22.8 thousand from the District Office’s budget; the District Office helped secure 10 thousand from the Marshal’s Office). Among other things, the Glinoludek town was organised and financed, and the film of the Glinoludeks’ trip to Chicago was paid for. Despite this, in the parade organised by Via Sudetica, district governor Cezary Przybylski and presidential candidate Dariusz Kwaśniewski, painted with clay, walked modestly in the procession behind Papa Glinolud, who was riding at the head of the parade in a Nowak Mobile.
Because of Bogusław Nowak’s ambitions, nobody in the city treats the politically entangled Gliniada normally. Normally, that is, as a business. The organizers do not want to seek ways of making money from Gliniada other than through local-government sources.
The organizers seem to be saying: “We have prepared a wonderful dinner for you, to which we invite you, but you pay for it.” The difficulty is that the face of Gliniada and Via Sudetica has begun to develop political ambitions, with enormous support from those who no longer want to ask the local government for money. They want to take power and distribute public funds according to their own rules.
Biernat has had enough, Civic Platform is turning up the heat
Bogusław Nowak had grown into the role of mayor. And together with his new support base, he began seeking power in the city. As he officially told the IstotneInformacje portal and newspaper in February this year: “I will run if they continue attacking me.”
According to Nowak, there were probably more attacks. But during this period (February 2010), he was concerned about the possible revocation of the alcohol licence for Piwnica Paryska, following residents’ complaint about noise and brawls at his restaurant. In the piece “Shouts at Paryska,” Daniel Biernat presented the neighbours’ complaint about the restaurant’s customers disturbing the peace and quiet. The matter was raised at a City Council session. The piece appeared on the front page of a local newspaper. It is possible that the blow against Nowak’s business was not deliberate or connected with the elections (residents had been complaining for a long time), but that is how the councillor perceived it. In Nowak, the desire to defeat Roman slowly grew. During the February session, he wrote on a sheet of paper, seemingly innocently, “Bogdan Bogusław Nowak President 2010”.
Nowak apparently regarded his removal from the Civic Platform club in August this year as an attack on him. According to the PO authorities, the reason was Bogusław Nowak’s radicalism, lack of discipline and uncouth behavior as a councillor, as well as disloyalty toward the Civic Platform milieu. Nowak admitted that although he was surprised by the situation, he had in fact criticized the PO candidate for mayor, believing that Dariusz Kwaśniewski was incapable of defeating Piotr Roman. At the beginning of September, he announced his own candidacy.
Wyborcza ratatouille in retaliation
The Electoral Committee of Voters of Bogusław Nowak was formed in retaliation, although it also brought together people with pure intentions who believed in changing the existing arrangement and developing the city according to different principles.
Among the twenty candidates are therefore some who were directly or indirectly wronged by Roman, as well as those who—to put it most delicately—are disappointed with the president and his management. Four years ago, Karol Stasik, himself removed from the post of deputy president, gathered those disappointed and wronged around him. This year, Bogusław Nowak has done so decisively.
The new group of people wanting to run the city is still weak and small in number, but it makes up for this with the intensity of its expression of firm dislike for the president. Some even speak of aggression, but that is because Nowak himself has this kind of style. It is even possible that gagging Nowak by creating the figure of a smiling mime is intended to change his image. For most people see him as an expressive man who, in his unrestrained emotions, crosses the boundaries of good manners. His verbal outbursts during City Council sessions are tactfully placed in parentheses in the minutes.
The appeal of this new political force is based mainly on hostility toward the president. It has the power to attract people—and quite rational ones at that. An example is Krystyna Juszkiewicz, the creator and longtime organizer of the “Blues nad Bobrem” Festival. This year’s event was saved and its former glory restored by a financial grant secured by Ewa Ołenicz-Bernacka (a Civic Platform councillor). Via Sudetica, although willing to help, could not support Juszkiewicz’s child because it is too weak an organization and lacks the necessary resources. And yet Krystyna Juszkiewicz became the lead candidate on Nowak’s list. What won her over, and the other supporters of the councillor?
Nowak and his committee are a new, power-hungry opposition. Although it has no chance of weakening Piotr Roman’s support this year, it will certainly take many votes away from Civic Platform, which is trying, unconvincingly, to position itself as Roman’s party opponent. The strength inherent in the new group is worth analyzing and taking seriously. All the same.
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)