Polish Populist: Defender of Downtrodden, or Budding Dictator?

Andrzej Lepper, the bad boy of Polish politics, is a man who enjoys attention and knows how to get it.

In an attack on the Polish establishment, the leader of Self-Defense, a farmers union and populist party, alleged late last year that five prominent politicians were taking bribes. Lepper based the charges, phrased in the form of questions, on information he said came from a farm manager named Bogdan Gasinski.

Days later, Gasinski, who has been accused of financial misconduct, discredited himself in the eyes of investigators and the Polish public with a fantastic shopping list of additional allegations. He claimed that the Taliban regime had experimented with anthrax on the farm he had managed and that Polish politicians were involved in smuggling drugs, disguised as shipments of gems, from Afghanistan.

Lepper has been charged with slander for the bribery allegations, made during a fiery speech he gave just before Parliament booted him out of a deputy speaker post Nov. 29.

He had been awarded that position in what commentators called an attempt to “tame” him after Self-Defense made a strong third-place showing in September parliamentary elections. But he had continued with behavior and comments that were seen as outrageous.

These included calling Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz a “scumbag.” He also joined a protest in Wloclawek that blocked a court-appointed officer and police from evicting an illegal bazaar. The site was later cleared.

Top politicians critical of Lepper are pushing for legislators to strip him of his parliamentary immunity so that a trial on the slander charges can proceed. If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison.

Lepper brushes off his turns of fortune from radical outsider to rising parliamentary leader back to political outcast. His future is brighter than ever, he insists.

“We do not hide the fact that we want to take over power and will do everything in order to rule Poland,” he said in a recent interview.

Economic Woes May Work in His Favor

With unemployment in Poland at 17% and economic growth falling to just 1% last year compared with 4% in 2000, the many losers in the transition to capitalism increasingly may be attracted by a hard-line populist such as Lepper.

“The political and economic situation in Poland is something which is very favorable to Self-Defense,” Lepper said. “We are warning those who rule: If they do not change the social, economic and political policy of the state, then we are going to have a public explosion. I will not be afraid to be at the head of that explosion.”

Last week, Lepper threatened to organize a nationwide strike if the government fails to improve the “extremely bad” situation for farmers. He did not say what kind of strike he had in mind. But from 1997 to 2000, Self-Defense repeatedly used roadblocks to stage violent protests against farm imports.

Lepper describes himself as a centrist battling on behalf of common people and against corruption.

“I’m happy when I’m among people in enterprises that are going bankrupt, during meetings with farmers, pensioners and those who are unemployed,” he said. “There are no people there who are against me.”

Lepper has a significant following not just among the rural and urban poor but also among farm owners who have taken out loans they cannot repay and small-business operators who believe that the economic system is stacked against them as they compete with big domestic and foreign firms.

A December survey by OBOP, a major polling agency, found that even after he was stripped of his deputy speaker’s post, Lepper still had the backing of a large minority. Among respondents, 39% said he acts for the “good” of democracy--down from 55% support in November.

“Despite all his caricature-like qualities, Lepper expresses the feelings of the lower-middle class whose flirt with capitalism has been a flop,” commentator Slawomir Majman wrote in the Warsaw Voice.

Lepper’s supporters are “those who wanted to move on from the market stall to a shop but were crushed by the supermarkets” and “office workers incapable of functioning in a computerized reality that prefers young people,” Majman wrote. They also include workers in heavy industries who are threatened by layoffs, he said.

Lepper says he doesn’t oppose Polish entry into the European Union, which the government is aiming for in 2004. However, he bitterly attacks the terms that Warsaw has been negotiating, especially concessions on rules for the sale of farmland and for trade.

“I’m a Euro-realist,” Lepper said. “I do not believe in any subsidies, in the help of the European Union, which today is undergoing an economic and social crisis. They will not give us something for free. Poland has to be strong. It has to have strong industry and strong agriculture, and then we can set conditions.”

Lepper’s critics see his demands as ruling out the possibility of EU membership for many years, and they fear that his rhetoric might undercut the public support needed for joining.

Critics often liken Lepper to Alexander G. Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, Poland’s poverty-stricken eastern neighbor. Lukashenko, who is sometimes called “Europe’s last dictator,” was reelected last year in balloting that the United States and the EU said was neither free nor fair.

“Lepper just wants power,” said Donald Tusk, co-leader of Civic Platform, the main opposition party. “He wants to be a Polish Lukashenko. And Lukashenko is only funny if you live 1,000 miles away from him.”

If Lepper takes power, “he will degrade Poland to the level of Belarus,” Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, a Polish commentator living in Washington, wrote in Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s largest-circulation newspaper.

“One may fear something even worse,” continued Nowak-Jezioranski, a World War II hero. “Unemployment and deep economic crisis . . . opened Hitler’s way to power. There appears a realistic possibility that Lepper may reach for power in the near future, either in consequence of the social unrest he himself stimulates, or by gaining a majority in the next free elections. Can one be sure, in light of what he says and does, that his governance will respect civil rights and the rights of his opponents in particular?”

Other observers express less alarm, arguing that Poles--with a long tradition of skepticism toward authority--are not susceptible to demagoguery.

‘It’s Not Me Who’s a Threat to Democracy’

Lepper laughs at the idea that he is a threat to democracy.

“A democracy that left a situation where 5% of society leads a very rich life, much above the average, and 75% has no means to live in dignity is not a democracy,” he said. “It’s not me who’s a threat to democracy.”

What puts democracy at risk, Lepper said, is the way in which market-oriented reforms were implemented in the 1990s, and actions such as the filing of slander charges against him “for words spoken from the parliamentary floor.”

“I simply asked questions,” Lepper said. “In Poland, corruption goes right to the very top of power. The ties of politicians with gangsters are quite clearly visible. I’m not afraid. Let them do whatever they want to do. Let them take away my immunity, and I will still continue to speak the truth from the Parliament floor. Even if they sentence me to go to prison, I will still come here to sessions of Parliament in my prison garb.”