Poland's Revolting Left

There is nothing better than getting a tape of one of the leaders of Poland's post-communist party (SLD) ripping on pretty much every one of the other top leftists, including former president Aleksander Kwasniewski and former prime minister Leszek Miller. But that's exactly what we got with another former PM and handsome devil, Jozef Oleksy putting out a full load of dirty laundry in a taped conversation with SLD-connected businessman Aleksander Gudzowaty.

I'd rather not go into the details on the blog about individual politicians because I don't have the money for lawyers, but this is some nasty stuff. The bottom line is this: SLD was up to its eyeballs in corruption. I'm beginning to reconsider the anti-commie vendetta by the Kaczynski brothers...

Here are some of the best quotes and the audio (both in Polish).

Cronies on Boards

"It has to be clearly said that 16 months after PiS's victory, no activist or supporter of our party, who bled himself during our election campaign, suffers from hunger and want."

This stark quote was made by one of the leaders of the Kaczynski brothers' PiS party, as quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.

Of course all politicians have to reward their supporters and the spoils system has been around for ages. But this just shows what the Kaczynski brothers are really doing out there. It's not about getting the communists out and certainly not about kicking out political hacks from state-controlled companies to put in their own experts. It's the exact opposite. It's about funneling state money to your supporters, getting them jobs at any cost.

At least the opposition Platforma Obywatelska is putting together a list of all PiS members who are sitting on boards of state-controlled companies. This is going to be interesting. Probably won't help much in the immediate term, but at least it will shine some light at this corrupt spoils system of Duck Republic, Inc. For a party that is so anti-communist, it's amazing how well it adopts the tactics of its enemies.

There is one definite way of fixing this to prevent the millions of zloty that are flowing out of inefficient and corrupt state enterprise: privatize now!

Maybe the next government will do that, because PiS is doing the exact opposite. Not only have the Kaczynski bros stalled privatization, they are even considering buying back stakes of state-controlled enterprises from private owners. Take a look at LOT.

Just When You Thought Lepper-gate Can't Get Uglier

Lepper-gate, or Sex-gate, or whatever you call this mess in Poland, looks to be getting even uglier. With "Archbishop Spy" grabbing the headlines in the recent weeks (scandals seem to be coming from all directions in Poland nowadays), Lepper-gate has been mostly pushed into the back pages. But there have been some developments worth mentioning.

According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Deputy Prime Minister Lepper did not only go after the young female members of Self Defense, his party, like his right hand Stanislaw Lyzwinski. Lepper had his eyes on the wives of party members. At least two women testified that De Leader indicated that to help their husband's careers, they might want to consider a "pleasant moment" with him in bed.

On top of this, Lepper is now refusing to provide DNA samples to see whether he, and not Lyzwinski, was the father of a child of Aneta Krawczyk, the woman who was the first one to come out with accusations of wide spread sexual harassment at Self-Defense. Confusing? Yes. Ugly? Definitely.

So quite soon we should see the prosecutor's office coming out with charges against Lyzwinski and, very likely, against Lepper. So far, 110 people have testified in the investigation. Krawczyk's credibility was badly hurt when first DNA tests cleared Lyzwinski, but now at least ten women confirm sex-for-jobs accusations made by Krawczyk and three other women in Gazeta Wyborcza in December. Three of the 10 women accuse De Leader.

This is what the Kaczynski brothers get for brining in the dirtiest party (in more ways than one) into the government just to save the Duck Republic from early elections. But it's not the end just yet. The ruling PiS party is sending out smoke signals that even if Lepper is indicted, the party he created will remain in the cabinet. Lepper will also keep his hands in the pot with a role of the behind-the-scenes-puppeteer.

Hey, wait a minute... Doesn't PiS stand for Law and Justice??? How ironic. How sad.

Cronyism at Its Worst

Polish papers are trumpeting the impending change at the top of PKN Orlen, central Europe's largest oil company. The Kaczynski twins are pushing another less-than-qualified crony to run a leading Polish company thanks to the government's golden share. He will replace a much more qualified manager. When I wrote about this to my friend Piotrek, a keen observer of Polish business, here's how he replied:

It's just another day in Duck republic. Ryanair probably can't keep up with the demand for one-way tickets to Ireland and Britain. Its cronyism at its worse, my friend.

I could not have put it better. I know that each political appointee has an army of advisers to make sure he doesn't screw up too much. But at some point we have to ask when the sheer incompetence of political appointees will hurt these companies beyond short-term repair. The nationalistic Kaczynski twins are hurting the national champions they are trying to promote. This is how we run Duck Republic, Inc.

Scaling New Levels of Incompetence in Poland

Poland has a new central bank governor. His name is Slawomir Skrzypek and is completely unqualified for the job. Here's a quote from the Financial Times:

In a parliamentary hearing earlier this week, Mr Skrzypek had some difficulties answering MPs' questions, and confused the deceased Wim Duisenberg with Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank since 2003, when asked for the names of central bankers with whom he would have to work.

More on Mr. Skrzypek. He never finish his degree at the Warsaw School of Economics and his MBA comes from an obscure US university in Wisconsin. His only qualification is being in the pocket of President Lech Kaczynski.

All it took is another political backroom deal. One more political appointment celebrating incompetence in the Duck Republic.

Another Remake of a Polish Classic?

The fictional story of Nikodem Dyzma, a clever nobody who rockets to the top of the Poland's social and political world, has been part of the Polish psyche for decades. There are three movie versions of the book written in 1932, which I'd guess is a record for Polish remakes. I even gave my mom a box set of two of the versions for Christmas.

And now thanks to a posting on the clever Polish blog Kurczeblade (Pale Chicken), I realize that we might be seeing yet another remake of Nikodem Dyzma in real life in the person of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. OK, OK, so he already was the prime minister for a few months, even though he had quite a thin political CV. Now he's being quickly prepared to take over Poland's largest bank PKO BP, despite his even more scant financial experience. Funny enough, Nikodem Dyzma held both posts in the book, except in reverse.

Here's a parody from YouTube (in Polish):

Corruption Among Post-Communists

A few years ago, an up-and-coming member of the post-Communist SLD party was asked what his goals are as a politician in Poland. His answer? "I want to become a millionaire within a couple years and a multi-millionaire down the line." Nothing about helping Poland, making things better. Not a snippet of idealism. (Forgive my naivety)

And no wonder. SLD, a successor of the repressive communist party that controlled Poland for decades, was brimming with corruption. It seemed to be full of two types of people: the old commies and the new careerist just ready to grab power and take advantage of it.


Today's Dziennik is running a great piece of investigative journalism which unveils, at least in a small part, of how things worked when SLD was in power just a few years ago. According to an article by Robert Zielinski (link in Polish), a company registered by the daughter-in-law of Leszek Miller, who headed the SLD-led cabinet, made a whopping 4.3 million zloty (around $1.5 million) on a sale of a stake in Internet portal Wirtualna Polska, without investing a penny. The stake was bought from a Polish investor and later unloaded to a mysterious firm registered in the Bahamas.

There's a lot more to this story, and I hope more will come out. But an investigation into this has been going on for years, so I won't hold my breath.

And don't forget that Miller ultimately lost his post in large part because of another sleaze scandal involving a bribery shakedown by one of his cronies.

It's just a shame that the current government never really followed up on promises of cleaning up corruption. There's still plenty young people looking to make millions through politics.

Quick Internship Before Running the Show

Former Polish PM Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has started on his short path to get the top job at Poland's (if not Eastern/Central Europe's largest) bank PKO BP. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, he is taking on a job of an adviser to the interim chief executive. This quick "internship" seems to be a charade to soon hand Marcinkiewicz the top job at PKO in an official (and likely rigged) selection process. Marcinkiewicz, who up to this point had no financial experience and wouldn't spot a ROE if it jumped in his face, has already said he will take part in the "competition."

Perhaps to indicate how happy the current staff at PKO is about his imminent ascendancy, Marcinkiewicz got an office on the 13th floor.

Welcome to the new Poland, where old corrupt system is being replaced by new corrupt system. Yet another indication of the failure of the Kaczynski brothers to follow up on their main goal of stumping out corruption.

No Experience Needed to Run Poland's Top Bank

Pretend for a minute you are looking for somebody to run a small bank branch and this impressive resume hits your desk:

* physics teacher at elementary school - 7 years
* vice principal - 2 years
* board of education member - 3 years
* experience running a company - none
* knowledge of a financial institution - none

Would you hire this person? What if I said he had some political experience???

Well, instead of running a branch, this individual will get to run Poland's main banking group, PKO BP. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who was Poland's prime minister for a little more than half a year, will get the top post at state-controlled PKO in January.

This is a farce on many levels. First, Marcinkiewicz's bosses, the Kaczynski brothers, had stated that one of their goals is to blow up the previous system that depended on a close knit elite connected with the former communist regime. They wanted to fight corruption. Instead, they are creating their very own corrupt system based on associations with the current government with even less regard for competence. They have already placed less than qualified managers at other state-controlled companies, such as the leading insurer PZU.

But even closer to people's pockets, the money saved up by millions of Poles will now be controlled by a man with absolutely no relevant financial experience. Yes, he was the head of the Polish government, but his cabinet was not exactly known for its financial acumen or thriftiness.

Another sad day in the running of the Duck Republic.

Leszek Balcerowicz, the outgoing head of the central bank, put it best when he described a decision by the financial oversight commission to approve Jaromir Netzel as the new chief executive of PZU, despite his complete lack of knowledge of the insurance industry:

"I ran the banking oversight commission for six years and I cannot recall one instance of the commission approving a president of a bank, even a small one, who did not have at least one year of experience."