Andrzej Lepper. photo - PR
The controversial politician Andrzej Lepper, a former deputy prime minister and leader of the Self-Defence party, has announced the next step in his political odyssey – he is going to run in this autumn’s local government elections.
Lepper will seek a mandate in the regional council in Northern Pomerania. “A party leader is obliged to support his party at the local, regional level,” he said, Wednesday.
Between 1998 and 2001, Lepper was a member of the Northern Pomerania council and represented Social Covenant, a coalition of rural based parties.
Lepper ran in this summer’s presidential election but only received a 1.28 percent vote share nationwide in the first round on June 20.
Since July 2007, Lepper has been in the political wilderness after the then prime minister Jarolsaw Kaczynski dismissed him from his cabinet as agricultural minister after he was accused of being involved in a land corruption scandal.
The leader of Self Defence said he had been the victim of a politically motivated set up and protested his innocence. In August this year, however, the Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw accused Lepper of giving false evidence in the case for which he may face up to three years in prison.
Andrzej Lepper already has been convicted of dumping grain on railway tracks in an anti-EU protest.
In February 2010, the District Court in Piotrkow sentenced Lepper to two years in prison for demanding and accepting sexual favours from female members of his party. The decision is under appeal, however.
“I’m convinced that the case will be reconsidered,” Lepper is quoted by the TVN 24 news station as saying. (pg/mg)