After last year's local elections, people said that although Piotr Roman won the city with an overwhelming number of votes, Civic Platform defended the county. Some added that it had done so with great difficulty. Although Dariusz Kwaśniewski, Civic Platform's candidate for mayor, received negligible support in the election (for such a large party), Bolesławiec's Civic Platform trumpeted its victory and—apparently—rested on its laurels.
The mayor emphasizes how well he now works with the new City Council during its sessions. In December 2010, after the budget was adopted without any problems, Piotr Roman said: “This is exactly how I imagine cooperation with the current City Council. There were many questions, doubts and proposals during committee meetings, but we were able to reach a consensus. This is a good sign both for this Council and for this local government.”
The spectacular Bogusław Nowak and Cezariusz Rudyk, Civic Platform councillors who asked the mayor uncomfortable questions and formed a visible opposition, have disappeared from the stage at City Hall. Newly elected councillors Wojciech Kasprzyk and Arkadiusz Krzemiński do not seem worthy replacements for their colleagues. They remain silent in unison during sessions.
Is the significant Bolesławiec party, which still enjoys substantial support, deteriorating before our eyes?
The Mayor Without the Duck, Civic Platform with Donald
During the 2006 local elections, Piotr Roman greeted Donald Tusk, who was visiting Bolesławiec, with a cuddly toy duck in his hand. In December 2007, he left Law and Justice. The move brought him nothing but benefits. Piotr Roman correctly suspected that he would not win many votes in Bolesławiec with the Kaczyński brothers' party. “I know a few people who did not vote for me because I was running with Law and Justice,” he told our journalist, commenting on his break with the party. Free from the burden of Kaczyński's blunders, he is now pursuing his Catholic-national ideological program on his own account—the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre is called by some the Catholic Ceramics Centre, because BOK-MCC hosted so many church events in April and will host them in May this year.
Bolesławiec's Civic Platform benefited from the enormous popularity enjoyed by the parent party. However, before the 2010 elections, Tusk and his party became less popular. Society's disappointment with those in power was clearly perceptible. People who had been active in politics for a long time (since the days of the Freedom Union) spoke openly about party totalitarianism. Piotr Roman played that tune virtuoso-like, distancing himself from party politics as much as possible. He ran in the election from the list of his own non-partisan committee, under the slogan “Stop political parties in local government.”
During the campaign, Dariusz Kwaśniewski, Civic Platform's candidate, noticed that the mayor was playing the non-partisan card. In a column in our newspaper, he wrote:
And what is the aim of this maneuver? To convince residents that the opposition is “bad”! […] The attempt to construct a supposed opposition: “bad parties” and “good non-parties” […] is an attempt to steer the campaign onto side tracks—non-substantive ones. We will deal with that too. But I believe that the promoted idea that (non-)party politicians' associations are superior to parties is a ploy that the “people of Bolesławiec” will not buy. Because they are not ignorant.
Unfortunately, Civic Platform did not cope with this, and it stopped at the column. Kwaśniewski tried to disagree so beautifully and nobly that he lost to a mayor who had not been presented with any obstacles to “convince” people that the opposition was nevertheless “bad.” What is more, the mayor convinced Bolesławiec residents that they did not need any opposition at all. Civic Platform was left holding Donald in the chamber pot.
Dariusz the First Loser
The campaign conducted by Kwaśniewski and his right-hand man, Cezariusz Rudyk, was dignified and beautiful in the eyes of people who value asceticism, nirvana and isolation in Himalayan Buddhist temples. For people who wanted to seize power and govern, it must have been an unending source of frustration.
Kwaśniewski started out with enthusiasm. He had his own idea for the campaign. It was to be substantive and restrained, treating voters as subjects. There were to be meetings, debates and conversations. It sounded idealistic, but honest. Unfortunately, deeds did not follow words. There were mainly columns, after which no one really knew what Kwaśniewski wanted at all. During the campaign, he did not clearly and firmly declare that he wanted to govern the city. He was a candidate for mayor, and that was apparently supposed to be self-evident. Unfortunately, voters did not read between the lines of the columns and did not figure it out.
Kwaśniewski came third in the election. He was defeated by a restaurateur and former mime who clearly declared his desire to take power in the city. A man without a political base, a specific program or political credibility. His success showed that people did want meaningful change and wanted opposition to the authorities in power. Opposition that might have been able only to make spectacular charges and say “no, because no,” but that would force those in power to reflect, confront them with some dilemma and occasionally persuade them to change their position.
Bolesławiec Civic Platform members chose as their candidate in the mayoral election someone who completely disappointed the hopes placed in him. He squandered his potential. An idealist who could not assume leadership and was no match for a politician as strong as Piotr Roman. The members of Civic Platform must either say this loudly and clearly, or they will not move forward.
I Would Rather Be County Head
The other members of Civic Platform appear interested neither in pursuing political careers nor even in taking power. The young wolves on the City Council, Kasprzyk and Krzemiński, adapted to their older colleagues and put their fangs in glasses. Wojtek Kasprzyk spoke up more loudly only once during a session. He asked whether the ladder climbed by an employee of BOK-MCC had been properly secured. That was the end of the young Civic Platform councillors' inquisitiveness. Two other Civic Platform councillors, Andrzej Czeczutka and Mirosław Sakowski, act normally and properly, never specifically opposing the mayor.
Even the chance to have its own member of parliament did not prove attractive to Civic Platform. County head Cezary Przybylski fought for a parliamentary seat in 2007. He fell short by only a few votes. When an opportunity arose in 2010 for him to take the seat vacated by fellow MPs, he said no. And he stayed at the County Office.
Karol Stasik, the party leader in the county, understands this refusal. “In the past, the natural advancement for a local activist was to become a councillor, then mayor or county head, and finally an MP. Now former local-government officials are fleeing parliamentary seats. An example is MP Zawiła, who ran for mayor of Jelenia Góra and resigned from the Sejm after winning. People want to work for their communities, not be pawns in party games. Cezary Przybylski is the head of the association of county heads in Lower Silesia and a member of the government–local government team. He will do more for the county as county head than as an MP,” Stasik argues.
Oh! Karol
One reason cited for Civic Platform's defeat in the election is the surge of investment in the city using EU money. The beautified parks, the “Orka” swimming pool and the new BOK-MCC building were the mayor's calling cards, showing that he was worth voting for. Although the County Office also obtained EU grants, it had no equally spectacular investments. The redevelopment of Karola Miarki and Żwirki i Wigury Streets and the Emergency Department were overshadowed by the mayor's projects.
Another reason for the defeat was the deliberately peaceful campaign. The lineup was disrupted by Bogusław Nowak's removal from the Civic Platform club, which came too late. He ran in the election, rallied radicals and many others who wanted change but could not expect it from Civic Platform. And although Nowak ran against the incumbent mayor, he took votes away from Kwaśniewski.
Civic Platform explains that it did not fight because it was thinking about the post-election situation—that is, a later, conflict-free agreement with Piotr Roman. Apparently, the mayor took the campaign five years earlier badly. He complained about losing his health and several kilograms. They did not want to hurt him in another “brutal” campaign, lest he again take offense at Civic Platform members.
Karol Stasik has a tough nut to crack. He leads a party that is falling apart. And it is the only party in the city with the potential to become a healthy opposition to the ruling Piotr Roman. Stasik proposes a tactic of introducing democracy from the ground up: through conversations, meetings and negotiations conducted in the normal course of local-government work. He does not want to trade attractive soundbites for the public and media. In this respect, Kwaśniewski might seem an ideal leader, and Civic Platform members' withdrawal from attacks on Roman a good move.
Why, then, does this nevertheless give the impression of defeat and suggest that the party is weak? Why does it raise the concern that Piotr Roman will now do whatever he wants with the city?
Stasik wants to return to healthy mechanisms of local self-government, where, as he says, he could talk about problems, discuss them, become convinced of the decisions being made and convince others of them. So that people would carry out the tasks assigned to them with full awareness. He is somewhat captivated by Kwaśniewski and sees in him someone who represents his idea of returning democracy to local government.
According to Stasik, Kwaśniewski will be Civic Platform's candidate for the Sejm in the autumn parliamentary elections. Apparently, he is full of enthusiasm and wants to win. And apparently he has a good chance. But as we already know, apparently in the Sejm one is now only a pawn, while the County Office keeps valuable people because they can do more for the region locally than in Warsaw.
We can speculate about whether Stasik's decisions are good and sound. However, for the sake of democracy, we would like Bolesławiec's Civic Platform to get back on its feet and show its claws. So that it does not turn completely sour.
Czy Platforma w Bolesławcu stanie się opozycją dla Romana?
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)