Poland X

That sinking feeling

2012-02-01T16:29:00.002+01:00

Political capital, any politician will tell you, is a precious commodity. Squander it at your peril. But Prime Minister Donald Tusk seems to be doing just that, and this could have a big impact on coming reform.

Tusk and the "new old" Civic Platform (PO)-Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) government sailed into the October elections and prevailed. This was a historic achievement. The pair became the first government to be re-elected since political and economic transformation in 1989.

But that's when a lot of the good news stopped.First, there was the prescription drug refund disaster. Anyone needing to fill prescriptions saw doctor protests followed up by pharmacy protests. Information chaos prevailed throughout. The elderly tend to be most affected by such things, and the new government cannot have won many friends there.

If that was the hammer, the anvil was the mess over ACTA, the rearguard movement by governments and the entertainment business to try to control the internet. Protests gathered thousands of young voters. Schools were even known to have let some students skip class to protest. Who do young people vote for? Till now, the PO.

The new government has thus managed to alienate the old and the young. This might not be a problem since the next elections are long off. But the big issue is that squandering political capital on what are basically side issues is a huge mistake.

This government has pledged ambitious reforms that deservedly have won praise from those calling for reform, including markets and credit rating agencies. Equally deservedly everyone is worried about 'execution risk,' a fancy way of saying 'we'll believe it when we see it.'

To do any of the big reforms, the government will need political capital. One example is the pledge to increase the retirement age to 67, something the vast majority of Poles oppose. Yet, this is one of the most important pieces of legislation in recent Polish history, particularly because Poland's will be one of the oldest populations in Europe in 20 years.

Irking the old, angering the young, pissing off everyone. That is not the recipe for reform or re-election. The gauntlet has been thrown. Now it is up to the government to stop wasting political capital and get to work on what really matters.

Wolves in white coats

2012-01-17T22:31:00.003+01:00

Polish pharmacists have now joined doctors in protesting against the new prescription drug refund law. For the good of the patient, naturally.

Pharmacists are closing their doors for an hour a day. Some are refusing to fill any prescriptions unless life threatening.

Doctors' refusal to decide the level of refund in line with the new law means pharmacists are afraid they will be left to pay if a drug is refunded for the uninsured.

The new law was to make doctors accountable for deciding how much the state will refund prescription drugs and make them pay if a patient was refunded but was uninsured. The government has already bowed down to doctor pressure, though they continue to protest. For the good of the patient, naturally.

The thing that irks me is that pharmacies in Poland are little more than purveyors of aspirin, cold medicine, vitamins and French cosmetics. They have gone through a dramatic transformation in recent years in terms of renovation and presentation.

Unfortunately, the focus is profit, not patients. In the search for medicine that is not super common but not uncommon either, I have personally gone from pharmacy to pharmacy only to find none of them sell it. Today, I went to one pharmacy that said on the door it refused to fill prescriptions and then naturally didn't have what I needed. They did have a lot of vitamin c, however.

I think Polish pharmaceutical market needs to be radically opened up. Supermarkets have to be let into the vitamin, OTC and related markets. Pharmacists can work at pharmacies specialising in prescription drugs. The rest we can buy where we like or where is cheapest.

Pharmacies like to pretend they have some sort of special relationship with the patient. That's why they wear the white coats, I guess. But next time check out the stationary they are using. It'll invariably be from one drug company or another. Profit is the motive.

I have no problem with this. But if profit is your overlying motive, as is obviously the worry in regards to the drug refund protest, let's make it a real business, open it up to supermarket competition, drive down prices, shift lineups for stuff that does need a specialist to prescribe, and shorten lineups for those that really do need prescription drugs and a little better care.

Tit for tat

2012-01-13T13:07:00.001+01:00

Poland's ruling coalitions fight and stab and bicker and cat-fight and tussle and pull hair and kick at each other. The lack of this truculence made the Civic Platform (PO)-Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) ruling coalition in 2007-2011 so strange. But let bygones be. The fights are back.

The PSL was the first to take off the gloves. Prime Minister Donald Tusk presented the new PO-PSL government's often prickly fiscal and economic reform plan in mid-November. Problem is, the prime minister doesn't seem to have consulted the PSL.

The PSL has since the speech opposed seemingly all of it. The PO wants to raise the retirement age to 67 for men from 65 and for women from 60. The PSL calls this barbaric. It instead wants women to be able to subtract three years for each child birthed from the statutory retirement age. If you have 10 kids, technically you could retire at 37…just to be clear, the PSL is mum on the level of retirement benefit.

The PSL doesn't want soldiers, police officers and the like to lose the ability to retire after 15 years of service (I once met a 40-year-old pensioner, though he was working). The PO wants a minimum of 25 years and a minimum age of 55.

The PSL doesn't want farmers to pay much in health-care contribution. The PSL didn't want the amount employers pay for a workers' contribution for disability payments to be raised. It is skeptical of capping local government deficits, tighter EU integration and Poland lending 6 billion euros to the IMF.

PM Tusk has found the PSL's conduct infuriating. In late December, he even said that if the PSL didn't back the reform plan, it was hard to talk about a future for the coalition.

But Tusk might have the last laugh. The PSL violated the electoral code for an infraction in the 2001 elections. It was ordered to pay 20 million zloty, including 9 million for the actual violation and 11 million in interest. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski was able to forgive the repayment of the interest. Surprise, surprise, he ordered earlier this week the full amount to be repaid.

Your move PSL.

Speed traps to help out budget?

2012-01-09T11:27:00.000+01:00

Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski wrote a recent "love" letter to European Monetary and Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn in which he outlined how Poland would reduce its budget deficit as fast as demanded by the European Commission. Rostowski did chastise the EC for a lack of "transparency" -- the Finance Ministry is clearly so transparent -- but for the most part it was boring public finance stuff…until the statement "a newly introduced road speed enforcement system should yield further revenues, estimated at 1.2bn PLN in 2012."

Ahem, excuse me, but the police are going to raise 1.2 billion zloty from speeding tickets? Jesus H Murphy.

Recent data said there were 18 million cars. Though this doesn't include trucks and buses, it would mean some 67 zloty per car in speeding tickets just in 2012. Let's say with trucks and buses some 50 zloty a head.

But babcias tend not to drive overly fast. There are also more and more less experienced drivers who follow the "drive defensively" rule. I thus have the feeling speeders -- little old me, perhaps -- will be stumping up a little more than others for this one.

Boy oh boy am I happy to be ready to help Poland meets its budget deficit goals when a secretary at a mining company can retire at 35, farmers don't pay health-care, social security or taxes, and the government drives the latest BMWs.

Prescription for change

2012-01-04T23:40:00.000+01:00

Be careful of what you wish for. I urged the government to bust a gut and get cracking. The good news is they did. The bad news is that it has been a disaster.

The new year brought with it joy for all (I'm sure) but also far-reaching changes to the way the government refunds prescription drugs. Doctors are now obliged to say which drugs are refunded and by how much. If a patient turns out not to have public health coverage, then the doctors are liable.

Doctors are not happy about bearing responsibility for what appears to be a bureaucratic decision. Instead of saying how much a prescription should be refunded, they are stamping them with a statement that the decision is up to the National Health Fund (NFZ).

So, a poor patient gets the prescription for some life-saving drug, gets the NFZ stamped version and goes to the pharmacy. The pharmacist doesn't know whether any refund will be honoured with such a stamp since it technically violates the law. Some pharmacists are thus refusing to give any refund in case they are liable one day.

Leaving aside controversial changes to the prescription drug refund list, the above basically sums up the problem. As always, who gets screwed in the end? We patients.

How do you know something in Poland is important? Prime Minister Donald Tusk holds a press conference.

Tusk met doctors on Wednesday and later announced that room for a compromise existed. Though he was sure to blame the whole mess on doctors, noting there would be no problemo if doctors had followed the law, he said he would work toward suspending any potential fines for drug refunds until a national insurance system was up and running. . .

. . . Erm, wait. There's no such system already? You wanted doctors to vouch for a patients' insurance coverage even though there's no national registry or easily searchable database. Hmmm. Maybe this could have been done first.

Get to work!

2012-01-02T21:20:00.000+01:00

No more lollygagging. No more dragging your heels. No more saying you can't do anything because the president is bad or the opposition is bleh or there's a crisis. No more excuses. The moment of truth is at hand.

For the senior ruling Civic Platform (PO) it is crunch time. Prime Minister Donald Tusk appears to understand this. His plan for the next four years laid out in mid-November comprises an ambitious agenda that would address a lot of economic and fiscal problems, both short- and long-dated ones. It deserves praise and indeed got it.

But how can one not raise the question of execution risk. Or, how can one believe a government that found a lot of reasons to not do anything in the preceding four years and precious few arguments for doing something.

The next three months will in fact already provide a good measure of whether Tusk's promises will be more than paper tigers and will help Poland become a Central European eagle.

In a just approved government plan, January is to start a busy first three months. The government will kick off with taxing copper and silver mining and then change the way the 9mn or so pensions are indexed. For February and March, the government wants to change tax breaks to effectively increase the tax burden, limit the free-spending ways of local governments, limit baby payment eligibility, limit early retirement eligibility for soldiers and police, and raise the retirement age to 67 from 65 for men and to 67 from 60 for women.

Some progress has already been made. Already in December the government increased the amount employers must pay for their employees' disability contribution by 2 percentage points in a bid to raise some 6-7 billion zlotys.

The European Union economy remains on the precipice regardless of the fact we have all enjoyed a couple week break. The global economy's prospects are tough. Consumer and broad sentiment is grim. In such bleak times, reform strength and stamina could be the difference between buying in and selling off. So, I say to the government, get to work.

...After a famine of Poland X posts in December, I pledge to also, er, get to work ...Happy New Year all.

Poles to be put on reservations?

2011-12-06T11:43:00.001+01:00

Poles favourite Native American hero: Winnitou

Which Polish political party could possibly come up with such a thesis other than Law and Justice (PiS)? Before I delve into it, here's the comment in question from PiS spokesperson Adam Hofman:

"Federalism thinking and the European Union will make Poles into Indians on reservations," Hofman told a radio station. "This is not a dream Poland for my son."

So, basically, the closer the EU integrates, as called for recently by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, the more Poland will become like a reservation with all the inherent negative implications and despite the deep insensitivity on Hofman's part.

What is the only appropriate response? Wave the Polish flag of course. Better yet, hold a demonstration and wave thousands of Polish flags.

Luckily for PiS, the 30th anniversary of Martial Law falls this December 13th. PiS thus now plans a "mass" rally to demonstrate for Poland's independence.

PiS's reaction to Sikorski's talk of the potential closer EU integration says more about PiS than it does about Sikorski's policy. What PiS's irrationally exuberant reaction actually points to is a party on the ropes. PiS just lost scores of members who decided to follow ex-PiS deputy leader Zbigniew Ziobro in his bid to form a new party. PiS has lost six straight elections. Reports even resound about a "high-ranking mole" in PiS working to undermine the party from within.

All this means PiS must give every effort to show it is the "nationalist" party, it is the "patriotic" party, it is representative of the "true" Poland. Ziobro's new group surely feels the exact same.

Prepare for lots more flag-waving to come as the two groups aim to be the rightist right-wing party.

No peeing in Warsaw

2011-11-30T11:12:00.001+01:00

The fortunately long since departed Communist-era was a time of idiotic rules totally detached from reality, making Poles quite proficient in cheating on these rules. Like the one that you could not buy alcohol before 1 P.M. It seems that the system can change but some things do not. Polish state railways PKP, to be precise. Apparently, the railways decided all trains will lock their bathrooms when they travel through Warsaw...

Why, you might ask, would anyone do that? Oh, it's quite simple. Warsaw's train stations are being renovated, but the train cars are not. In these old cars when you want to pee, well, let's just say the stuff doesn't stay on the train for more than a few seconds. Nobody really cared too much until that, er, stuff started dropping beside the renovated rail stations. So, PKP decided to solve the problem by locking the toilets.

Now, it seems that just to be on the safe side PKP decided the best course of action would be to make all toilets usable on a need-to-pee basis across Poland and not only in Warsaw. I wonder when Poles will get the message and figure out that windows are closer and cannot be locked....

First Ireland, now Hungary

2011-11-25T15:57:00.001+01:00

I don't really like advice. People like to hear it. But no one ever follows it. Seems like a waste of time. But I do like exceptions, and so here's a piece of advice for Poland's politicians: don't promise to make Poland into anything except Poland.

In case you're slightly confused (I hope so, so you'll be reading on), I'm speaking of Polish politicians' tendency to say 'we promise to make Poland into Country X.'

Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Civic Platform (PO) were first bitten by this disease. Tusk and his gang spent the entire 2007 election campaign promising to make Poland into Ireland. With the Celtic miracle seemingly unstoppable, with Poles already making up seemingly half of the population there, it did not seem a stretch that Poland could repeat the move and turn into the Eagle economy.

Then came the crisis, the banking busts, the government socialization of banking sector idiocy and now the Irish have turned into the Poles they previously welcomed: they're both migrating in search of work elsewhere. I guess Tusk just got it wrong. Poland didn't become Ireland. Ireland became Poland, and then went even worse.

Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski spent the election evening of Oct 9 promising to make Poland into Hungary. After what was his sixth straight election loss, Kaczynski had to rally the troops somehow. So he and his followers started selling the idea that Poles will somehow be so sick of a PO battered by the coming crisis that they will elect PiS in droves, as happened in Hungary in the 2010 elections.

Kaczynski probably spends his nights tossing and turning dreaming of repeating the well-to-the-right-wing party Fidesz's winning of a two-thirds constitutional majority in the elections. Fidesz could, and then did, change the constitution at will and at any whim. Safely in basket-case territory, the Hungarian authorities now have no credibility and the country's debt ratings are being downgraded and the forint is falling off a cliff.

I hope Kaczynski also got it wrong. I also really sincerely hope Poland doesn't become Hungary. I know my property investments don't need any more hammering.

On a bright note, our fearless European leaders no doubt have the situation in hand and will soon save the day . . . what's that? They're the problem. Oh no….

What not to say...

2011-11-23T16:53:00.001+01:00

Friendly neighbourhood visit from coal miners - Warsaw, 2003

Prime Minister Donald Tusk's reform plan presented this past Friday sure ruffled a few feathers. We are not surprised at all that miners, judges and prosecutors are threatening all hell will break loose if their privileges get cut. Legal lobbies already claim the move to drop preferential pensions for judges and prosecutors will "threaten judges freedom from bias" while judges and prosecutors themselves are thinking about striking.

Given that, according to the World Bank's Doing Business in 2012 report, it takes 830 (!!!) days on average in Poland to enforce a contract in court, I would say a strike in judicial system is a rather empty threat. It would take three years for people to notice any difference...

Miners have outright threatened the prime minister, saying, through their labour union representatives, that either the government stops dabbling in their retirement affairs or they will storm. How that usually ends one can see in the picture above left.

Such complaints were to be expected, but surprisingly the most controversy, especially in parliament and on the financial market, was related to the announcement of a new copper and silver mining tax, aka the "KGHM tax."

Since the PM spoke Friday at noon, the markets were told "the good news" live, and quite surprisingly, not every investor listened to the speech and not all of them had enough time to short the stock before it collapsed. Either that, or they have a longer investment horizon like say, pension funds, and were not happy about the news. At all.

Clearly lots of MPs were also long KGHM that Friday because it took them a surprisingly short time to connect the new tax proposal with KGHM's performance before, clearly, the most market savvy Janusz Palikot came out and asked the prime minister who exactly knew about the new tax beforehand and were they involved in insider trading?

Donald Tusk of course quickly rejected any such accusations, but already people are going through transaction records looking at large short bets against KGHM made before the speech.

So let this be a lesson. If you are a "pro-market" prime minister and want to make an impression on the market, do so after the session's end or the impression will be quite different from that expected.

Who's to blame for PiS's sixth straight election loss?

2011-11-21T20:30:00.001+01:00

Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski's answer to the question of who is to blame for his party's sixth straight election loss is . . . not him. Surprise, surprise.

Kaczynski's answer -- which has taken on extra importance since a group of PiS MPs has since quit the party or been kicked out to form a rival party -- spreads across 11 whole pages sent to PiS believers over the weekend. What's that old saw about liars feeling the need to over-explain themselves?

Kaczynski, anyway, blames that bugbear of the right: the liberal media. The "media" completely blew out of proportion anti-PiS stories and worked as the de facto third arm of the election-winning Civic Platform (PO), which has now won six straight elections.

A major culprit is also Zbigniew Ziobro and Jacek Kurski, the two de facto leaders of the latest splinter group from PiS. Ziobro, Kurski and others demanded change in PiS in order to make the party electable. Problem is, questioning Kaczynski is not allowed and they were turfed. Now that I know they were to blame for the election loss, I can understand why they had to be kicked out.

Kaczynski also mentions that the right-wing of the political scene is beset by similar problems as in the 1990s, when right-of-centre parties splintered and re-splintered as no one could work with each other. Kaczynski blamed unrealistic ambition for the splits and said this was returning.

Ahhh, I get it. The "unrealistic ambition" of leaders who don't know that they can't win elections and then just weaken everyone else is why PiS can't win an election.

Hmmmm, I wonder where the "unrealistic ambition" really lies these days.

PiS couldn't have lost because Kaczynski is the least trusted politician in Poland with the biggest negative electorate. No, no, no. It also wasn't because Kaczynski accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of de facto being a spy, reminding everyone how brash, divisive and alienating he can be. It likewise wasn't because no one believes that PiS won't manipulate all organs of power to achieving their spurious goals if they win and then proceed to make a hash of it.

And it definitely wasn't because the PiS leader is scared of any resistance -- whether internally or from PO leader Donald Tusk, who Kaczynski refused to debate in the recent election campaign -- and doesn't know when he's become the problem. No one but Kaczynski can control PiS anymore but PiS with Kaczynski can't win elections. A funny quandary.

When the PM speaks...

2011-11-18T18:43:00.001+01:00

There is a communist-era joke in Poland that goes something like this: "The Party never lies. When the Party speaks about taking something, it takes it. When the Party speaks about giving something, it speaks." Prime Minister Donald Tusk presented his economic plan for the upcoming future on Friday, but it remains to be seen whether this old saying will be proven true again.

Some already have named it "the most important speech since 1989." With all due respect, but does everything in Poland have to either be grandiose or total crap? Who cares if it was the best, worst, shortest or longest speech. This is not a figure-skating contest where you get points for "style."

The PM's line is that there is a crisis in the European Union (no shit Sherlock) and that in order to protect Poland painful steps are needed. This is a strange thing for the PM to say since only a few months ago he was waving Poland's GDP growth figure in Brussels to show off how resilient Poland is...but I digress.

So let's make a "joke forecast" here and assume that the old sayings do have the "power" to create reality. Based on the joke here is what the "old-new" government will actually achieve during this term:

Tax and fee hikes:

Let's not beat around the bush, if you "unify tax breaks" that means raising taxes, and this is high on the government's agenda. This means:

1. An increase in the disability tax on labour by 2 percentage points, let's think about who will cover the cost amid a crisis and rising unemployment?

2. Scrapping a tax break for the first kid for high-earners, as part of the pro-family policy of course.

3. Expanding capital gains tax to eliminate "tax-free" financial products.

4. Hiking tax on copper and silver deposits -- if you have any doubts about the potential impact, copper miner KGHM's shares fell 13 percent on the news.

5. Shale gas industry tax -- we don't even have shale gas yet and we are already taxing it.

6. Limiting the tax deduction for people producing copyrights (already mentioned on this blog).

7. Scrapping internet tax break.

8. Introducing healthcare fees for wealthier farmers.

Scrapping benefits:

Benefits for small, unpopular or, dare I say, non-core electorate groups will be scrapped, meaning prosecutors, judges and some coal miners can say farewell to their early pension benefits.

This is the list of things the government will talk, and only talk, about implementing for next four years:

- Healthcare system reform, unless "reform" means higher fees of course.

- Extension of retirement age to 67 for both men and women.

- Extension of retirement age for soldiers and policemen -- at the same time the government plans to improve Poland's defensive potential, so I guess this will not be built around people.

- Including farmers in the universal social security framework.

- Leaner and "client oriented" administration focused on performance.

- Less bureaucracy in construction permits.

- Opening up half of professions locked in by regulations, which means scrapping institutions like lawyers associations, etc.

- Fewer legal acts produced by the government but producing better quality legislation.

- Speeding up the judicial process in Poland. How? By cutting judges' benefits?

I agree with Scott. Should the government implement all of the above, especially the pension system unification and the inclusion of farmers into the universal social security system, Poland's public finances and, in general Poland, would be much better of. At least I would know that the tax hikes the government slapped on me were not in vain. But I guess we will see in next 13 months. If by then the government does not have the reforms ready and in parliament, it means we were duped...again.

Sorry, I'm on the phone

2011-11-18T18:26:00.001+01:00

Prime Minister Donald Tusk gave his long-awaited presentation on Friday of the "new-old" government's reform plan. The devil will clearly be in the execution since there were in fact quite a lot of details for such a speech, a surprising amount. We'll see. If Tusk and his new government -- the youngest since 1989, as he likes to point out -- can put it in place, Poland will be in far better fiscal position than most other European countries, though that is not saying much these days.

Most observers and political players were all ears when Tusk started his speech today at noon. One was not: Jaroslaw Kaczynski did the Polish political equivalent of "sorry, can't pay attention, I'm on the phone."

Yep, Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who could bore the rust off a bumper with a political speech, waltzed into the lower house late and talking on the phone, and showily so. He proceeded to talk for a number of seconds before actually listening to Tusk.

Who do you think he was calling? A great guess would be his mom (EDIT: Probably to talk about a funeral for his beloved cat Alik, which died recently).

One thing I'm sure of is that it was not a job interview. For, Jaroslaw Kaczynski has a monopoly on being Poland's opposition leader, something it seems he will remain for the foreseeable future.

No eagles here

2011-11-16T19:09:00.001+01:00

Poland's football association PZPN rarely shows any sign of considered long-term thinking. I was thus extremely surprised that for once someone there actually thought about the upcoming European football championships Poland co-hosts with Ukraine next June in a realistic way.

The association, clearly after a deep analysis of the national team's past performance and in a rare moment of sobriety, decided to remove Poland's national symbol -- a white eagle -- from players' shirts.

So far this year the national team coached by Franciszek Smuda has won 6 games, tied 3 and lost 3, but let's be frank most of the opponents were not the best. If we take a look at Poland's potential opponents in the tournament, the record is much clearer. Since 2009, when Smuda took over, team has failed to win a single game against any opponent that qualified for the Euro 2012. It managed to tie only two and lost a total of four.

Unfortunately the media, other fans and even players themselves do not agree with me that it is good the eagle is gone. Fans are protesting against the move online and in real life by boycotting the latest friendly match. The media has hit out in the usual frenzy. Politicians want legal changes that would force the eagle back onto the shirts...but why??!! After all, it would only turn red with shame during the tournament itself...

War!

2011-11-15T17:21:00.001+01:00

Prime Minister Donald Tusk is deciding whether to liquidate a tax break that allows journalists and any profession with copyrights of their intellectual material to pay tax on only half their reported income, according to the daily Rzeczpospolita. If Tusk does decide to do so in the Friday presentation of his "new-old" government's policy, it will be as good as a declaration of war on journalists, artists and scientists.

Tusk might not care one iota whether journalists will be hurt. Many of them -- including we here -- have bitched and moaned for months and months about the lack of "real" fiscal reform. And, in terms of solidarity, why shouldn't an artist or a journalist also feel a little bit of fiscal pain. They are not usually starving

Tusk, if he does decide to remove the tax break, will clearly play up the fact that his government has taken a real step by sticking it to a bunch of whining journos.

But one thing I would counsel Tusk in is that removing the tax break might hit journalists, but it will also hurt those like university professors. Making it harder for university profs is not exactly in line with the government's oft-stated goal of boosting education.

Polish artists and musicians are far more the starving kind than the Hollywood sort, so hurting them to some degree hurts the very resurgence of a moderate tolerant Polish identity.

Moreover, journalists, university professors, artists, musicians and the like all back Tusk's Civic Platform (PO) in droves. They help raise the public profile and to some degree give free positive PR to the party, particularly in relation to the heaps of negative PR afforded Tusk's main rival, Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Law and Justice (PiS).

Considering the savings of getting rid of the tax break are akin to a rounding error in terms of the public finance problem itself, they would produce limited gain for state finances.

If Tusk does decide to remove this tax break, it will be very much like declaring war on himself, hurting his voters and not doing one bit to help public finances.

Hools Independence Day

2011-11-11T18:46:00.001+01:00

Another November 11, another Hools Independence Day in Warsaw. The president might speak, the prime minister will smile during Poland's Independence Day celebrations, but make no mistake, the main course of celebrations is always elsewhere in the traditional battle between left and right wing radical hools that traditionally takes place in downtown Warsaw.

Today was slightly different since the two groups didn't clash because they were split up by police forces, which immediately resulted in...good ole fighting with the police. The usual accessories were used, starting with bricks, sticks and flares on the hools side and water cannons, pepper spray, truncheons and shields on the police side. Soon the battlefield, sorry I meant the city centre, was billowing with smoke.

The grand finale came at around 17:00 local time when a TV station's broadcasting truck and a passenger car with its logo were set on fire, clearly someone got either cold or pissed off at the reporters...who fortunately were not in the van.

Both the leftists and the rightists will announce victory. The left has already announced it by saying "we stopped the fascists!" With a little help from the police, of course. And the other hools did manage to take a detour, but these of course are details. That 150 people were arrested, 21 (including cops) are in hospitals and damages are probably extensive, who cares. After all that is meaningless when you talk about stopping fascism.

The right wing hooligans got what they wanted too, with a little help they did make it to their destination. As planned they managed to kick some butt on the way, destroy a few things and steal media headlines probably for few days. AND they got mentioned on Poland X.

So, clearly the spirit of revolution is still strong among young Poles, but did anyone tell them we have a democratic and free country?!

Oh, and a final note, the really funny thing about this whole mess is that both of these "demonstrations" were perfectly legal. The city mayor's office approved the two demonstrations aimed at battling each other to take in the same place at the same time. Wow, somebody really knew what he or she was doing signing these approvals...

Battlefield 3 blows away Polish blockbuster

2011-11-08T23:14:00.002+01:00

Rather than watching a "blockbuster" recreation of Poles fight for freedom filmed in 3D with supposedly high-end visual effects, a plethora of Polish movie stars and a script revolving around one of the nation's key historic moments, Poles prefer to just go out and shoot people on their own, virtually of course.

It turns out sales of the recently released third iteration of the well-known first person shooter Battlefield reached 7.2 million zlotys in the first three days of the game's launch on Oct 27. That easily beat "Battle of Warsaw 1920," which earned 4.7 million zlotys. In the battle of the "battles," it seems Battlefield 3 wins.

Battlefield did just beat out Poland's latest attempt at an historical action movie blockbuster, it came close to bringing in enough revenue to compare well with the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean and the last episode of Harry Potter's adventures.

For those of you who are not gamers or don't have gaming kids, an FPS is a game in which from a first-person perspective you have the rare opportunity to shoot, stab, bomb, run over other players when playing online or computer-generated opponents when offline in single player mode.

And now I have to run... there are some people that really need to be shot. Hooah!

Early Christmas present

2011-11-07T22:45:00.001+01:00

Hit the road Zbiggy

Zbigniew Ziobro is no more of Law and Justice (PiS), the conservative-nationalist opposition party run with an unforgiving fist by Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Ziobro and two now ex-leading PiS members were turfed from the party on Friday evening for having the temerity to question the party's strategy after it lost its sixth straight election on October 9. How dare they?

Jaroslaw Kaczynski knows best, clearly. After Karol Karski, the PiS disciplinarian, did an investigation worthy of the name 'Stalinist show trial,' he got Adam Hofman, Kaczynski's poodle, to announce that Ziobro, Tadeusz Cymanski and Jacek Kurski were out for allegedly hurting PiS publicly. Hmmm, wouldn't six straight election defeats comprise hurting PiS publicly as well?

Kaczynski clearly prefers Hofman and Karski to the other three rebels, believing they will be far more valuable to PiS. Well, a politician is only as good as his latest vote count. Let's see, Ziobro - 335,933, Karski - 2,730. Ziobro, for all his many failings has in fact proven popular with voters whereas Karski didn't even make parliament and thus his political career is totally in the hands of . . . Kaczynski.

These most recent ejections are only the latest. In fact, for better or worse, PiS could be so much stronger if it still included all the politicians that were once in the party but were kicked out after clashes with Kaczynski: Radoslaw Sikorski, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Marek Jurek, Ludwik Dorn, Pawel Ponclyjusz, Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, Elzbieta Jakubiak, Marek Migalski and now Ziobro, Cymanski and Kurski. These individuals account for hundreds of thousands of votes.

Ziobro is to ambition like crack to a plumber, so he should be expected to set up a new party, likely with a considerable chunk of one-time PiS members. In the event, just on Monday evening, Ziobro allies announced the formation of a new parliamentary group. It apparently will be a separate vehicle as long as PiS continues to exclude Ziobro and friends.

This is likely merely a holding strategy until a new party can be formed. It if gets the backing of priest-cum-media mogul Tadeusz Rydzyk, who runs the powerful (at least for the over-65 crowd) radio outlet Radio Maryja, it could be dangerous, at least to Kaczynski and the PiS holdouts.

Then, Ziobro's new party and PiS will race to be the most patriotic, the most holy, the most intolerant, the most Polish, all the while shedding moderate voters. . . Donald Tusk got an early Christmas present.

Poo in the bathtub

2011-11-04T23:45:00.004+01:00

Clearly, the Palikot Movement is doing everything it can to grab media attention before the new parliament even starts working and, just like this headline, its strategy is the more controversy, the better.

The party is pushing for the removal of the cross from the lower house of parliament's chamber, a move openly or quietly opposed by every other party.

It has also managed to grab headlines after a row with the rival leftist party Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) over... rooms in the parliament building. In an eyebrow raising quarrel, the two parties fought over the location of their offices. To some surprise, Palikot's party won and the old-timers from the SLD had to vacate their rooms and literally make room for the young bloods. A sign of times, it seems.

On Friday, the Palikot Movement put forward yet another (un)realistic demand: that Waldemar Pawlak, the head of the junior ruling Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) and the outgoing deputy prime minister, resign from his position and make way for other "professionals" in the party. The reason? The Economy Ministry Pawlak also runs is late on some EU-related legislation.

If all ministers resigned because legislation was late, we would be changing governments every three months. Not to mention the fact that the PSL simply has no other "professionals" that can step up and replace Pawlak easily.

As we have indicated, these are going to be interesting (in a scary-grotesque-perfect-for blogging way) times in Polish politics, but I want to know what ever happened to Palikot the Statesman, the guy who offered to be a serious coalition partner for Prime Minister Donald Tusk? Not that we mind; we prefer Palikot the King of Dildos anyway.

Should I stay or should I go

2011-11-03T21:36:00.000+01:00

The Law and Justice (PiS) tussle between leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the upstart Zbigniew Ziobro continues with neither of the hard-right big wigs yet saying wujek. Ziobro, or "Zizou" as he is apparently called by friends, thus remains inside PiS with the big question stated in the title up there.

Zizou, who is only 41, is politically ambitious. The former justice minister and current Euro-MP was once seen as the heir apparent to Kaczynski. A future stint as PM or even as president beckoned. But his position as the PiS crown prince is no more. Kaczynski said recently that Janusz Kurtyka, the former head of the national remembrance institute who died in the Smolensk plane crash in April 2010, would have taken over PiS, not Ziobro.

This is probably one main reason why Ziobro launched his recent rebellion and seems intent on carrying it through this time. Ziobro did launch previous revolts but always kow-towed to Kaczynski. It was almost as if Ziobro was testing Kaczynski's weaknesses.

Launching his own party would put Ziobro firmly in the centre. He is said to be supported by a platoon of current PiS members numbering 30 or 40. This would leave him in better situation than other previous PiS rebels that clashed with Kaczynski, launched their own parties amid much fanfare and proceeded to get hammered during elections before effective political banishment. Strong backing at the start could be key.

But the Palikot Movement (RP) shows that you can do very well at the ballot box as long as you come up with ideas that gain resonance. Ex-Civic Platform (PO) deputy leader Janusz Palikot's movement stressed its anti-clericalism and presented itself as an attractive cocktail of leftist social policy and liberal economics, catering to urbanites across Poland.

Ziobro and allies do not have any such idea. The rebellion is a power play par excellence sparked by electoral dismay and political ambition. As such, its future could very well be cast in doubt. Hard right supporters will look to see who has the best chance of doing well and then will likely vote for them.

Unless Ziobro can overtake Kaczynski, this would appear to be PiS. Father Rydzyk, the radical Catholic media mogul who plays a big role on the right, could provide a much needed boost for a potential Ziobro-led party. But despite Rydzyk and Ziobro being far closer than Rydzyk and Kaczynski, Rydzyk will want results, not intentions.

Ziobro can go. It looks increasingly like he will go. But there are big questions whether he should go. Another way of looking at it is that for PiS haters, a Ziobro splinter party is good news indeed.

Perfect school

2011-10-30T22:48:00.000+01:00

This school has everything: a brand new gym and basketball court, PCs for all students, projectors for presentations, all the most modern tools of which most schools in Poland can only dream. The cost of overhauling the facility is 4.5 million zlotys and now only one thing is missing...students. Yes, since the high school is strategically located in a place called Strzepcze (no, I don't have an idea where that is either) there is no one that wants to enroll there.

As the daily Gazeta Wyborcza writes, this is not such a great surprise either. The Kashubian high school had problems attracting students for quite some time. In 2009 only six students wanted to attend the school, which was too few to create a class, and a year later no one came.

Surprise, surprise, teenagers prefer schools in nearby towns to a village school, no matter how well equipped.

Is anyone going to take the blame for spending money on a school that does not make sense? The money certainly could be spent better, for example, on nearby schools that students actually want to go to or on schools that are being closed against the will of kids and parents because of financial trouble. No, obviously not. Officials are saying it was worth it. After all, a whopping 170 people finished the school. Overall.

Sickly Poles

2011-10-28T12:29:00.003+02:00

Yay! We are again the best in Europe! According to the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Poles took by far the most sick leave days of all EU nations! Oh, wait, it wasn't a contest? Ahhh, the lower the score, the better... so we don't get a special prize? But it cost us over 23 billion zlotys!

The amazing wave of sickness afflicting Poles must be due to some outside factors like pollution, extremely harsh weather conditions, or shortage of food, right?! Right?!

Unfortunately, it seems the reality is much much more dire and comes down to a simple truth: Poles cheat on sick leave. If they need additional vacation time, they go to the doctor. If they need a break, they go to the doctor. Even if they need to go to Germany for a (not so) lucrative seasonal job, they go to the doctor.

Why do people bother to get sick leave? Well if they do so, they get 80 percent of their salary during that time with no additional checks or forms needed. Sometimes employers cannot refuse a sick leave, but they can turn down your vacation time application, so it is just easier to go on sick leave.

Some would say, oh, Poles are just lazy, but that is not necessarily true as Poland also tops the ranking of most overtime hours worked. This wouldn't be because those who are healthy have to do the jobs of those that are sick, would it?

No peace in PiS

2011-10-25T22:41:00.002+02:00

Looking over his shoulder

Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski was once called a political genius for masterminding a pair of come-from-behind election victories in 2005 over the Civic Platform (PO). But genius has been used a lot less courtesy of six straight election defeats. Worse, the Oct 9th loss saw PiS's vote total fall nearly 1mn from four years before despite the PO ruling during the worst economic crisis in decades. If you can't win then, when can you win?

Zbigniew Ziobro, the one-time PiS boy wonder, is asking precisely that question. Speaking via two sympathetic media channels this past week, Ziobro demanded that those in PiS responsible for the latest setback be held accountable. He called for the formation of a broader rightist movement that can actually win an election. He stopped short of calling for Kaczynski to be replaced, but he threatened to launch his own party should change not be forthcoming.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. That is the sound of pleasure. But, you might wonder, whose pleasure?

Jaroslaw's.

You see, Jaroslaw Kaczynski loves only one thing more than his mom and his cat: putting down a good, bloody political rebellion. PiS's election history means he's clearly not the Napoleon of Polish political strategy. But he is definitely the Stalin of Polish politics so good is his ability to purge would-be rivals.

The right-wing of the Polish political scene is in fact littered with the corpses of those who have dared clash with Kaczynski. For the most part, they drift into obscurity. Such was the fate of once important figures like Marek Jurek or Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz or Ludwik Dorn. It looks like Pawel Kowal and Pawel Poncyljusz, two recent rebels from PJN, will share the same destiny.

From this angle Ziobro looks likely to get his comeuppance as he and like-minded mutineers are booted out of PiS.

But this time could be different. Ziobro did not threaten to launch his own 'more nationalist' and 'more rightist' party in the pages of any old newspaper. He did so in Nasz Dziennik, the newspaper run by radical Catholic media mogul Tadeusz Rydzyk.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski will not want to upset Rydzyk as this would threaten the loss of one of PiS's main electoral pillars. A new party would also likely trigger the kind of right-wing infighting that characterised much of the 1990s. The only real beneficiary of all this would also be . . . the Civic Platform.

If PiS self-destructs over the latest election failure, Donald Tusk will laugh all the way back to the PM's office, where he could be safely ensconced for decades to come, making the following picture seem prescient.

Sweet revenge...

2011-10-22T20:14:00.000+02:00

Remember the guy that asked Prime Minister Donald Tusk the toughest question during the election campaign? This was a red pepper farmer who came up to the prime minister and asked him "how can I live?" The farmer, whose plantation was destroyed in storms earlier this year, immediately became Law and Justice's (PiS) second biggest election campaign star, second only to Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS leader.

Unfortunately for pepper-meister Stanislaw Kowalczyk, PiS did not win the October 9th election. Instead, Kowalczyk and his fellow farmers have to answer some questions themselves as the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) has begun investigating them all for potential insurance fraud.

This is not the first such case. During the campaign, a bakery in which Jaroslaw Kaczynski praised the flavour of Polish bread was raided by sanitary control service Sanepid a day later.

Oh well, I guess if you want to play with the big boys you have to be ready to take a few blows yourself. Moreover, it is somewhat just that the CBA, a unit formed when Jaroslaw Kaczynski was PM and at the time was accused of setting priorities in line with the ruling party's interests, would now be chasing his potential allies. What I don't get is what insurance fraud has got to do with corruption?

Palikot dupes dopers?

2011-10-20T23:49:00.002+02:00

Janusz Palikot, the enfant terrible of Polish politics, has been accused by the Free the Weed Initiative of basically being, well, an enfant terrible, or so goes the hard-hitting story heralded Thursday as an "exclusive" by www.tvp.info, public TV's news service. Forget Gaddafi. We have Palikot vs. potheads.

It seems the ganja-growing gang is somewhat uncharacteristically incensed -- yes, they are off the couch and, yes, their eyes really are just dry -- because Palikot promised that in return for support he would push for liberalisation of the narcotics law for Maria Jasia, aka Mary Jane, and now it looks like he might have just used them. Egad.

"Janusz has proposed introducing to the drug law a provision that assumes waiving the prosecution of persons possessing narcotic drugs for 'personal, non-commercial use.' He thus threw into one bag marijuana and the so-called hard drugs," a Free the Weed leader Jedrzej Sadowski railed. "The Palikot Movement has completely ignored our bill...."

The Palikot Movement's leadership denied the allegations, saying the Free the Weed Movement was split into two fractions, only one of which was smoking mad. Other friends of marijuana said that co-operation with Palikot was producing benefits.

So, let's see here. We have a "fraction" of the Free the Weed Movement that thought supporting Palikot would produce instant changes to the drugs law. I've got some bad news for you guys: Palikot is not in the government and probably won't be. Your bill will never be supported by a Civic Platform (PO) that is desperate to be non-controversial at all costs.

And though I generally support your position, I have a different recommendation: why don't you guys sit back, kick your feet up and, well, you know what to do.