|
Poland Democratic Union
The Democratic Union (Unia Demokratyczna--UD) held its
unification congress in May 1991 to integrate three
Solidarity
splinter groups and to adopt a platform for the
parliamentary
elections. The UD counted among its members such
luminaries of
the Solidarity movement as Jacek Kuron, Adam Michnik,
Bronislaw
Geremek, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki. The party sought
political and
economic reform through the rule of law. Rejecting
extremism of
any stripe, it pursued policies of economic pragmatism.
Although
its registered membership ranked only fifth numerically
among
political parties, the UD was a well-organized national
party
with branches in all forty-nine districts.
In October 1991, with the UD expected to win more than
a
quarter of the Sejm seats in the parliamentary election,
party
chairman Mazowiecki indicated his availability to reassume
the
duties of prime minister. But the UD took only sixty-two
Sejm and
twenty-one Senate seats, paying dearly for its refusal to
renounce the Balcerowicz Plan of economic shock therapy
and for
opposing the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of
abortion.
During the first half of 1992, relations between the UD
and
Walesa improved considerably. Walesa offered to appoint
the two
former prime ministers, Mazowiecki and Bielecki, as his
senior
advisers. He repeatedly urged the inclusion of the UD in
an
expanded governing coalition, but negotiations toward that
end
failed. Instead, the UD joined forces with two other
economic
reformist parties outside the Olszewski government to form
the
Little Coalition. After the collapse of the Olszewski
government,
the coalition failed to reach an agreement with the new
prime
minister, Waldemar Pawlak, on the composition of a new
cabinet.
According to Pawlak, the coalition insisted on total
control over
the economy, a concession he was not willing to make. With
the
election of Hanna Suchocka as the new prime minister in
mid-1992,
the Democratic Union regained the leadership of the
government
and held four of the key cabinet positions, including
director of
the Office of the Council of Ministers and the ministries
of
finance, defense, and labor and social affairs.
Data as of October 1992
|
