If one feature stood out on Poland’s political scene in 2008 it was the difficult ‘cohabitation’ between the government and President Lech Kaczynski (photo: PM Tusk, Pres. Kaczynski, Secretary of State Rice, FM Sikorski in Warsaw for anti-missile shield signing, December 2008).

By Peter Gentle

When Donald Tusk led his Civic Platform party to victory in the general election, late 2007, the stage was set for many battles. Tusk, the free market reformer would clash with the more statist President Kaczynski, who saw his role as defending the gains of his twin brother, Jaroslaw’s Law and Justice administration (2005 - 07).

Since a change in the constitution in 1997, presidents’ powers are limited and somewhat vague - especially over the role of the head of state concerning foreign policy. The main power presidents hold, these days, is the power to veto legislation coming from both houses of parliament. President Kaczynski would use - and threaten to use - this veto many times in 2008.

The year began with a wave of strikes and industrial protest in the coal mines, in schools and health service. For instance, the Association of Polish Teachers (ZNP) claimed a pay rise of 50 percent for some of its members, emboldened by promises Civic Platform made in the election campaign only months before to finally bring justice to education system employees.

But it was the health sector which was most concerned about reforms Prime Minister Tusk announced to change the status of hospitals. What the government called “commercialisation” - setting up each hospital as an independent economic unit - the opposition, in the shape of both Law and Justice and the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD - called simply “privatisation”. A series of White Summits were held, bringing together health professionals, the government and the president to find a solution.

In the event, the government passed a series of health reform bills but half of them were vetoed by President Kaczynski. “Human health and life are not goods for sale,” he said in November.

Another bill vetoed by the president concerned the public media and the powers of the National Radio and TV Council (KRRiT), two members of which are appointed by the head of state. President Kaczynski also blocked changes to the powers of the Electronic Communication Office.

But it was foreign policy that saw the government and president lock horns over most often throughout 2008.

Who should represent Poland at European summits in Brussels? Kaczynski insisted he should be there during crucial negotiations on a whole host of matters, from the Lisbon Treaty - which he has refused to sign since Ireland voted against it in a referendum - to policy towards Russia and the environment. The government said that having both prime minister and president at these summits sends out mixed messages and “confused signals” to other European states. But President Kaczynski held firm and even chartered his own plane to one summit in October.

Difficult plane journeys would be a feature of 2008 for President Kaczynski. When the bloody conflict broke out between Russia and Georgia over the status of South Ossetia in July, President Kaczynski saw it as a “legacy issue”, and vowed to do all he could to defend the “territorial integrity” of Georgia - even, as the government complained, while acting independently of Prime Minister Tusk. Towards the end of the short war, President Kaczynski led a delegation - organised without the knowledge of the foreign ministry - of presidents and prime ministers of the Baltic states and Ukraine to Tbilisi. With Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski finally on board, the plane set off for Georgia, only for the pilot to refuse to enter airspace controlled by Russia. Kaczynski was furious and demanded - as head of the armed forces - that the plane fly direct to the Georgian capital. Eventually the plane touched down in neighbouring Azerbaijan and the leaders were forced to travel some 200km by road to Tbilisi. The government subsequently awarded the pilot for his responsibility, while the president had threatened to sack him.

In another incident, President Kaczynski, scheduled to be in Japan, became stuck for hours in Mongolia as his plane froze over on the runway at the Ulan Bator airport.

President Kaczynski also considered cancelling an official visit to Hungary due to technical problems with the two governmental aircraft.

Back in Warsaw, another area which the government set out its stall early with was its desire to cut the amount of workers eligible for early retirement - from the current one million to just 250,000. After both houses of parliament passed the bill, President Kaczynski promptly vetoed it. But the government finally found a way to overturn the veto - it needs a three-fifths majority in the lower house (the Sejm) to do so - something it cannot manage with only its coalition partner, the Polish Peasants Party (PSL) in tow. So they turned to and won the support of, the ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance and passed the legislation in December.

The two sides - Civic Platform, which comes from the Solidarity opposition, and SLD, which has roots in the old communist party - are currently italking about maintaining this unlikely alliance in an attempt to limit the power of the president and his vetoing pen.

Politics gets personal

At times, the difficult cohabitation became personal. When Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice was in Warsaw to sign the anti-missile shield deal, President Kaczynski was heard to laugh derisively when Prime Minister Tusk gave a short welcoming speech in English. “I always laugh when I hear someone speaking a language badly,” he said. The government immediately shot back that President Kaczynski does not speak English, at all.

The anti-missile shield negotiations were a running sore between the PM’s Office and Presidential Palace for most of the year, each side trying to take credit for getting good deal terms.

In July, Dziennik published extracts of a transcript of a meeting between President Kaczynski and Foreign Minister Sikorski after the latter came back from a trip to Washington. "Your ego is inflated to monstrous proportions," Kaczynski was reported to have said, and accused the government of secretly negotiating alternative terms with the US Democrats, in the event of a win by Barack Obama.

"If you continue to insult me, I will leave," answered the minister.

The “difficult coalition” had a happy ending, of sorts, in December when President Kaczynski and Prime Minister Tusk united in opposition to the EU’s Climate Package, which seeks to make deep cuts in carbon emissions and a long tern reorganisation of power supplies. Poland, with its 90 percent dependence on coal, would be hit hard by such a measure and Warsaw led the charge for poorer EU states to gain concessions, with some backing from Italy and Germany.

With the “difficult cohabitation” finally on ice, Poland won the room and funds it needed to combat climate change in its own time, and President Kaczynski and PM Tusk came back from Brussels united, at last. For now.