Tensions rise in coalition?UPDATED - As PM Tusk sums up two and a half year in office today, it is revealed that the junior coalition partner, the Polish Peasants Party (PSL) was close to leaving the government after they were ignored over the setting up of the new advisory Economic Council.
“Everybody is really angry at Civic Platform, even [deputy PM] Pawlak,” an informant told the Rzeczpospolita daily.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the new 11-member Economic Council of March 9,led by former prime minister Jan Krzysztof Bielecki to advise the government on draft legislation and policy. PSL are angry they were not consulted on the composition of the council, which is made up, largely, of economic liberals and right wingers. PSL took this as “a slap in the face,” reports the newspaper.
Waldemar Pawlak, however, has said that the claim that his party has considered leaving the coalition as “an invention of the media,” though there have been “disputes between the two parties,” as is to be expected as they come from different political traditions.
PSL have been in the coalition since the last general election in 2007 after Civic Platform became the largest party in parliament but without a working majority. Leader of PSL in parliament, Stanislaw Żelichowski is thought to have defended the party’s place in the coalition, arguing that they have twice before pulled out of coalition governments and it would not be wise to burn its bridges by doing so again.
Tusk sums up two and half years
Beginning at 10.30 CET, Friday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk will sum up two and a half years in office in the lower house of parliament, the Sejm.
The debate, which could last up to six hours, could be stormy, as the opposition will argue that Civic Platform has failed to implement flagship polices contained in their manifesto before the elections in 2007. Donald Tusk is expected, however, to claim that the government is successfully sailing Poland through the choppy waters of the global economic crisis.
The summing up of the government’s period in power is at the request, last November, of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).
SLD leader Grzegorz Napieralski says the left has been waiting a long time for the summing up report and intends to obtain answers to specific questions on economy, health, education and pension systems.
In his speech on the second anniversary of the Civic Platform/PSL coalition in November 2009, Donald Tusk spoke for three hours, his longest since taking office. (pg)
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Two and a half years of success, claims Tusk, thenews.pl, March 19