So, your President is bad?
Jul. 10th, 2007 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_keObviously, you haven't been to Poland lately. Warning: this is one of my rare current affairs posts. Feel free to skip, but it is fairly hilarious, methinks. In a Catch 22 kind of way.
Basically, the situation is such: shortly after the general election the Prime Minister was called off by his party and said party's leader took his place (that's a long story in itself - he got called off because he was a good Prime Minister, basically). The catch is, the new Prime Minister is the twin brother of our current President. I wish I was joking. So basically it was a right-wing Catholic, pro-Church, conservative government. Not exactly my government, but what can you do. The really funny part is that they won the general election by a fairly narrow margin. Now, the second party is centre-right-wing, mostly inteligentsia. Reasonably liberal and all. But they turned out to be sore loosers and no coalition was formed. So, what do the twins do? Form a coalition with a radical right-wing, ultra-Catholic bunch of nationalists and a centre-left-wing populist party, led by a guy with a criminal record. The less said the better.
That was roughly two years ago. In the meantime we experienced the joys of the radical right-wing, ultra-Catholic party leader being the Minister for Education (a story in itself) and a grand mess in general. But the whole thing worked. Somewhat. Yesterday, however, the guy with the criminal record was called off, because he was suspected of corruption (likely). But that's not the end yet (yes, it gets better).
Background: the Church is generally pretty influential around here. A state Catholic by default, I sometimes say. There is this one priest, in one of the major cities, who is a little like an American tele-evangelist. He has his own radio station and TV, and leads an army of old ladies in mohair berets. It's no secret it's due to his influence the twins won the election. The thing is, the twins don't like him much. So it's all smiles in public and private agendas under the table.
A while ago the government wanted to pass a lot stricter anti-abortion bill (and our law is already very strict). The First Lady (who was up until then staying in the shadow, and was somewhat mocked even) co-signed a petition with some of our most popular female reporters and journalists, on a private meeting in the Presidential Palace, not to let it pass. She scored a lot of points in my book, just by doing that. But the aforementioned priest likened the meeting to a septic tank. The cincher? The President, except for stating that his wife was insulted (no duh!), did nothing. His brother did even less.
This Sunday one of the major political magazines published an article in which they claimed they have tapes on which the priest says the President is cheat and the First Lady is a witch who should undergo euthanasia. They published the tapes online yesterday and the priest just about admitted they are genuine (let me add here that this weekend the President and the priest and a bunch of other politicians were at a pilgrimage in Jasna Gora together). And, even though insulting the head of state is a criminal offence, still nothing happened (except some lame comments from the President). Now obviously, the twins don't want to lose the couple millions of votes the priest's support gave them. So, to cover up the scandal they fired the guy with the criminal record (he was a vice-Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture, I think).
Meanwhile, the healthcare workers are on strike, demanding that we return to communism pretty much, the 2012 Football thing is just around the corner and we have no decent stadiums, our roads are horrible, our Minister for Education thinks all problems will be solved by making kids wear uniforms and read biography and works of the late Pope (with all due respect to the undoubtedly great man, being a Pope does not make him a brilliant writer, nevermind the biography).
The clincher is that the twins built their campaign promising a safe and honest, family-orientated state. So much for that, eh? Does anyone wonder why I don't particularly mind moving away? I admit it's not particularly patriotic. I tend to think of myself as European, whenever I can be bothered to assign myself a borderline. Right now I think this country needs a massive dose of common sense and ethics, not foolhardy, radical patriotism and prayer.
Basically, the situation is such: shortly after the general election the Prime Minister was called off by his party and said party's leader took his place (that's a long story in itself - he got called off because he was a good Prime Minister, basically). The catch is, the new Prime Minister is the twin brother of our current President. I wish I was joking. So basically it was a right-wing Catholic, pro-Church, conservative government. Not exactly my government, but what can you do. The really funny part is that they won the general election by a fairly narrow margin. Now, the second party is centre-right-wing, mostly inteligentsia. Reasonably liberal and all. But they turned out to be sore loosers and no coalition was formed. So, what do the twins do? Form a coalition with a radical right-wing, ultra-Catholic bunch of nationalists and a centre-left-wing populist party, led by a guy with a criminal record. The less said the better.
That was roughly two years ago. In the meantime we experienced the joys of the radical right-wing, ultra-Catholic party leader being the Minister for Education (a story in itself) and a grand mess in general. But the whole thing worked. Somewhat. Yesterday, however, the guy with the criminal record was called off, because he was suspected of corruption (likely). But that's not the end yet (yes, it gets better).
Background: the Church is generally pretty influential around here. A state Catholic by default, I sometimes say. There is this one priest, in one of the major cities, who is a little like an American tele-evangelist. He has his own radio station and TV, and leads an army of old ladies in mohair berets. It's no secret it's due to his influence the twins won the election. The thing is, the twins don't like him much. So it's all smiles in public and private agendas under the table.
A while ago the government wanted to pass a lot stricter anti-abortion bill (and our law is already very strict). The First Lady (who was up until then staying in the shadow, and was somewhat mocked even) co-signed a petition with some of our most popular female reporters and journalists, on a private meeting in the Presidential Palace, not to let it pass. She scored a lot of points in my book, just by doing that. But the aforementioned priest likened the meeting to a septic tank. The cincher? The President, except for stating that his wife was insulted (no duh!), did nothing. His brother did even less.
This Sunday one of the major political magazines published an article in which they claimed they have tapes on which the priest says the President is cheat and the First Lady is a witch who should undergo euthanasia. They published the tapes online yesterday and the priest just about admitted they are genuine (let me add here that this weekend the President and the priest and a bunch of other politicians were at a pilgrimage in Jasna Gora together). And, even though insulting the head of state is a criminal offence, still nothing happened (except some lame comments from the President). Now obviously, the twins don't want to lose the couple millions of votes the priest's support gave them. So, to cover up the scandal they fired the guy with the criminal record (he was a vice-Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture, I think).
Meanwhile, the healthcare workers are on strike, demanding that we return to communism pretty much, the 2012 Football thing is just around the corner and we have no decent stadiums, our roads are horrible, our Minister for Education thinks all problems will be solved by making kids wear uniforms and read biography and works of the late Pope (with all due respect to the undoubtedly great man, being a Pope does not make him a brilliant writer, nevermind the biography).
The clincher is that the twins built their campaign promising a safe and honest, family-orientated state. So much for that, eh? Does anyone wonder why I don't particularly mind moving away? I admit it's not particularly patriotic. I tend to think of myself as European, whenever I can be bothered to assign myself a borderline. Right now I think this country needs a massive dose of common sense and ethics, not foolhardy, radical patriotism and prayer.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 12:24 am (UTC)Poland? My maternal great-grandfather emigrated from Poland about 100 years ago.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 07:39 am (UTC)^______^ Yeah, that was a time a lot of us emigrated. Do you know where in Poland he came from?