Solidarity's many faces:
Moore, Kenneth
SOLIDARITY'S MANY FACES TO GOVERN IS TO CHOOSE A great white banner with Solidarnosc spelled out in red hung from the upper level s of the Gdansk railway station. Billboards and posters throughout...
...In the 1989 election the church served as a patron...
...As the campaign progressed it became increasingly clear that Solidarity would win...
...A third major party will be social democratic in philosophy, supporting a socialist economy, demilitarization, and a parliamentary system of government...
...This had all been decided in roundtable negotiations which in their pre-election creation of the ground rules and postelection resolution of constitutional questions seemed almost to dwarf the election itself...
...Lech Walesa proposed a post-election roundtable to resolve the problem...
...Solidarity is not a political party even though it participated as such in the election of 1989...
...KENNETH MOORE...
...There is only one winner, the nation, our country...
...Solidarity's role in this more diverse political context will be quite different from what it is today...
...Many sides and factions including the Communist government, Solidarity, and the church contributed, and each will be remembered for what it did...
...In the lower house, the Sejm, the government was assured 65 percent of the seats by an agreement with Solidarity...
...Shortly thereafter Walesa had a second meeting with Kiszczak and the two agreed to a discussion between Solidarity and the government commencing February 6, and lasting no more than six weeks...
...One of these was the prime minister...
...Would the ruling Communist party relinquish power if defeated at that time...
...In a postelection interview with the London Independent, General Wojciech Jaruzelski implied that it would...
...In spite of Jaruzelski's noble words there are many contrary signs...
...Cynics have observed that the reason the Communists have invited Solidarity into the government is to share the blame...
...The students of Warsaw University went on strike, and in marches and public meetings protested the government's refusal to officially recognize the Independent Student Union, the NZS...
...An improving economy will do much to enhance the prospects for an orderly election in 1993...
...When the results came in, Solidarity had won 92 of the 100 seats in the Senate and was destined to win another 7 in the June 18 run-off...
...Though the Polish nation is not only in flux, but in crisis, historians of the future will recall that in 1989 the most open and democratic election in Eastern Europe in more than forty years took place there...
...Their highly vocal protest was ignored by most...
...one of these is based on the great diversity of positions within Solidarity...
...Though Solidarity won convincingly, it will not assume control of the government...
...A candidate could be defeated only if more than 50 percent of the voters crossed out his or her name...
...According to the roundtable agreement, the Polish election of 1989, with an assured victory for the government party in the Sejm, was a necessary preliminary stage leading to totally free elections in 1993...
...The roundtable negotiations were originally called for by the minister of the interior as a means of resolving the crisis created by Solidarity-initiated strikes in August 1988...
...Hyperinflation, a severe housing shortage, the rationing of meat, the use of the dollar rather than the zloty as the principal currency for major purchases are all signs of an economic order that is out of control...
...This had not been anticipated in the pre-election planning and produced a constitutional crisis...
...Walesa agreed, met with Kiszczak, and following the meeting called off the strikes...
...According to Bronislaw Geremek, a principal adviser to Lech Walesa, "The church was not only a patron of the roundtable, but in fact also one of its promoters and initiators...
...The election campaign brought forth not only Solidarity's banners, but as well the proliferation of new journals and newspapers and the presentation of diverse political positions on radio and TV...
...In the eight years since its foundation many of its leaders had served prison terms for unlawful political activities...
...As for the economy, it is a disaster...
...The significance of the roundtable was expressed by Walesa who said at its conclusion, "the fact that with the authorities we can write today words that until recently would have been read only in underground periodicals inspires us with hope...
...A majority of the electorate expressed its rejection of the government by crossing off thirty-three of its candidates...
...A Polish pope in dialogue with both Solidarity and the government will have much to say, although quietly, in the coming four years...
...Billboards and posters throughout Warsaw, the smaller cities, and the countryside announced not only Solidarity's contention in the Polish election of June 1989, but proclaimed a new era of freedom for the nation...
...Assumption of power would be the normal outcome of a similar victory in an election in the West, but it was agreed beforehand that this election would be no more than one step in the direction of parliamentary democracy...
...Speaking for the government, Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak asked the then illegal Solidarity to "participate in talks at the roundtable...
...Walesa not only won convincingly but outlined Solidarity's case to a national audience...
...Surely, they have a list of alternate scenarios...
...By 1993 political parties will emerge...
...The conservative movement, currently referred to as the neo-liberal faction, will produce another...
...With pollution a major national problem, a strong environmentalist constituency has emerged and a variation on the Green parties of Western Europe will likely appear by 1993...
...Should the economy get worse, unanticipated and unpopular measures will be called for and the party responsible will be held accountable...
...Among these will be a nationalist party asserting total Polish independence...
...A week before the election Lech Walesa said that anything less than 70 percent of the seats in the newly formed Senate would be a disappointment...
...The roundtable actually went on for nine weeks, but out of the heated dialogue of the final three weeks the two sides produced a communique that laid down the format for government restructuring and national election procedures...
...In the months that followed Walesa was invited to appear on national TV to debate the leader of the government-sponsored union...
...The government minister at the joint appearance said, "Neither side has won...
...in particular the police...
...it is doubtful that the Communist party of Poland would retreat to obscurity if defeated at the polls...
...Only nine months prior to this campaign Solidarity had been illegal...
...It is better described as an integrating mechanism for the many factions that make up the opposition...
...Also of major consideration as Poland looks toward the elections of 1993 are the role of the church and the condition of the economy...
...He said, "it is logical that if you talk about free elections, one assumes any outcome is possible...
Vol. 116 • July 1989 • No. 13
