MEP wants new left bloc to fight European election

Marek Siwiec: photo - Wikimedia Commons/Slawek.

Marek Siwiec – who left the ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) in December last year – said that he would, together with Janusz Palikot, who leads the left-liberal Palikot Movement in Poland's national parliament, approach Aleksander Kwasniewski to create a list of candidates to stand in the next European elections in 2015.

The list, says MEP Siwiec, would “unite pro-European forces” and Kwasniewski – president of Poland for an unprecedented two five year terms from 1995 – “should stand as a candidate,” he told the RMF FM radio station.

He added that voters needed a choice from the left of the political spectrum, noting that the European Parliament is dominated, currently, by centre-right parties, such as Poland's ruling Civic Platform.

“Forty percent of Poles are for the common Europe currency. They are the ones who really want to live in a continent that works on common principles,” said Siwiec.

Siwiec, a close ally of Kwasniewski when he was in the Presidential Palace, and was his security advisor, left the SLD last year after saying that the party, which he had been a member of for 23 years, had no policy to return to government, since it lost the general election of 2005 in a hail of accusations of cronyism and corruption.

Siwiec was non-committal, however, whether there was a need to create a new left wing party, or to form a coalition between liberal-left politicians in Poland.

The MEP now represents the Palikot Movement in the European Parliament, though he is not yet a member of Poland's third largest party. (pg)