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Ruling party gears up for elections

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 12.06.2011 09:22
The ruling Civic Platform (PO) party held a national convention in Gdańsk on Saturday, ahead of its campaign for the general election this autumn.

PM
PM Tusk in Gdansk; photo - PAP/Roman Jocher

Party members, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, debated the party’s activities since Civic Platform’s foundation ten years ago and drew a balance sheet of the four years at the helm of government in a coalition with the Polish Peasant Party (PSL).

Deputy Speaker of Parliament Stefan Niesiołowski said on the eve of the convention that Poland is going through a very difficult moment, politically, notably attempts to revive, “populist trends, nationalism and demagogy”.

In his view, Civic Platform is the only force that is counteracting these negative tendencies in a concrete manner.

Another Civic Platform leader, Jarosław Gowin, who represents PO's more conservative faction, stressed that a party which, ten years after its birth, has a president, prime minister and speaker of Parliament in office has every reason to be satisfied.

Prime Minister Tusk’s address closed the convention in the late afternoon hours.

Other speakers included the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and the Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz.

A message from President Bronisław Komorowski, who suspended his Civic Platform membership after becoming head of state, was presented to the participants via a video recording.

The Gdańsk branch of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) staged a demonstration in front of the Ergo Arena, the venue of the convention, focusing on what they said were the government’s unfulfilled promises. There were also protests by trade unionists from the Baltic shipyards and by anarchists.

Meanwhile, Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, leader of Poland Comes First (PJN) breakaway splitter group from the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party appeared at the convention, signalling that she will be supporting Civic Platform in the general election.

“I am with you today because I believe that Poles want peace, not war, that Poles want to love, not hate. In a word, I am with you today because I'm with you all the way," she told delegates.

As Civic Platform’s convention was underway in Gdansk, leader of Law and Justice Jaroslaw Kaczynski was at a rally for young supporters of his party in Warsaw.

Kaczynski said that Poland’s past was meeting in Gdansk, while meeting in Warsaw, “was Poland‘s future”. (mk/pg)

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