Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Poland's Prime Minister ruins chances of coalition

Poland's Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, may have ruined the chances for his government to form a coalition in the Polish Parliament when he made his speech at the Gdansk Stocznia shipyard where he said, "you are with us or you are in the ZOMO" See ZOMO.

His comments seem to have had a negative impact on his own party and the survival of his government. See Polish prime minister draws black line

Kaczynski has been attempting to bring members from other political parties into his own party, Law and Justice Party, in order to get enough votes to have a majority in the Polish parliament. But his remarks may be too extreme for members of other parties and also may have hurt him within his own party.

It is rumored that some members of the Law and Justice Party are readying themselves to leave the Law and Justice Party. The extremism that he demonstrated at Gdansk Stocznia appears to be even too much even for members of the extreme Law and Justice Party.

The PSL which has been negotiating with Kaczynski to form a coalition has apparently started to back away from continuing negotiations because even if they agreed to go into coalition with law and Justice Party, the Law and Justice Party coalition would still not have enough votes to carry a majority in the Polish parliament.

Public support for Kaczynski and his party has dropped down to about 16% of the of voters polled and the opposition party Civic Platform now holds a commanding lead of about 36%. And more telling, some 59% of the Polish people polled are not satisfied with the Polish government run by Kaczynski.

It appears that staying with Kaczynski is like staying with a sinking ship. As he becomes more extreme and makes accusations such as he did it at Stocznia shipyard, he is likely to convince people that he will drag them down with him. And they will have seconds thoughts about supporting him.

But the damage may already done as the comments at Gdansk Stocznia are echoing louder each day.
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