The unprecedented death of so many of Poland’s political leaders puts Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a precarious situation.
LVIV, Ukraine – The death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in a fiery plane crash in western Russia on April 10 is likely to throw Poland into an era of political uncertainty as far as its relationship with Moscow goes, and puts in doubt closer ties to Ukraine.
“There will be changes,” said Anatoliy Romaniuk, a leading analyst who is a political science professor at Lviv’s Ivan Franko National University.
“Kaczynski saw the world from the perspective of – when making decisions – that it may not be easy today, but it’s better for tomorrow. [His opponents] were more politically pragmatic today, without always considering the long-term consequences.”
Kaczynski, and 95 other national leaders were killed on April 10 while en route to a service commemorating the 70-year anniversary of the Katyn massacre, where more than 20,000 Polish officers had been murdered by the Soviet secret police in a forest near the Russian city of Smolensk. Many of Poland’s top military, political and religious leaders were on board the Soviet-made TU-154 aircraft when it crashed. The pilot had been trying to land in dense fog and Russian investigators have suggested human error may have been to blame.
Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, who had accompanied him on the ill-fated trip, will be buried on April 18 at Krakow’s Wawel Cathedral, a storied site which since the 14th century has held the remains of Polish kings and other heroes.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and former President Viktor Yushchenko, Kaczynski’s friend, will attend the state funeral, as well as leaders of many other nations, including U.S. President Barack Obama. Opposition leader and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will also attend.
Poland will now hold an election on June 13 or June 20 to pick a new president. Kaczynski had previously announced he would run for re-election in a race that was originally planned for the fall.
It is not yet clear who will replace Kaczynski as a candidate from the conservative Law and Justice Party, which the deceased president had established in 2001 with his identical twin brother, Jaroslaw. Many of the party’s top leaders had been travelling to Katyn with the Polish president when his plane crashed.
Jaroslaw may run in his brother’s place, while at the same time trying to rebuild the party, of which he is chairman, analysts said. He is expected to announce his plans after the funeral.
The unprecedented death of so many of Poland’s political leaders, however, puts Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a precarious situation, Ukrainian analysts said. Although post-Communist Poland has shown the strength of its democratic institutions since the crash – the government has continued to function normally – Poles may hold Tusk and his politics partly responsible for the tragedy.
“This next election can produce an unexpected result,” said Taras Vosniak, who runs Lviv’s Ji magazine that specializes in philosophical and social issues. “Tusk and his party can lose the election. Out of emotion, people may vote for the Law and Justice Party.”
Tusk heads the center-right Civic Platform party. Until the crash, his party’s candidate, Bronislaw Komorowski, who is currently acting president, was expected to comfortably win the presidential race.
As leaders of Poland’s two largest political parties, Tusk and Kaczynski were political opponents who often refused to talk to one another. Their world views, and what was ultimately important for Poland, were widely divergent.
Kaczynski began his career in Poland’s pro-democracy Solidarity movement in the 1980s. A staunch anti-Communist, he was suspicious of Russia and Germany, countries with which Poland has had a complicated historical relationship. He was Ukraine’s strongest supporter in Europe and often argued its case for membership to the European Union and NATO. He continued to carry Ukraine’s torch even when Kyiv failed to meet his expectations.
“We have to realize the strength of that friendship,” said Volodymyr Mokhnachov, an official from Poltava who was the Polish president’s cousin. “He was on the side of Ukraine. He had that true goal that Ukraine be part of the EU. We also had a goal that Ukraine is seen as a European country.”
The younger Tusk has been more pragmatic in his politics. He’s been willing to put history aside when dealing with Russia and Germany, or look the other way, as long as it forwards Poland’s interests, analysts said. Countries like Ukraine have been less important to him politically.
It is the conflict of these two world views that ensured Poland’s two most important leaders boarded different planes three days apart to pay homage to the victims of the Katyn massacre in Russia.
In what had been hailed a major breakthrough in Polish-Russian relations, Tusk had accepted an invitation from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to attend a commemorative ceremony at Katyn on April 7. It was the first time a Russian leader had extended such an invitation to a Polish leader and appeared willing to entertain the thought that Soviets had committed atrocities against Poles. The Katyn massacre had been a major stumbling block in the Polish-Russian relationship, although Moscow still refuses to open archival documents related to the killings.
Kaczynski had also wanted to attend the event, but was rebuffed by Moscow. A mini-diplomatic scandal ensued involving denied, then found, official requests from Kaczynski to be present at the Tusk-Putin ceremony. Ultimately, a separate Polish-sponsored event was planned at Katyn, with Kaczynski and his high-level delegation attending.
The decision to attend the Putin ceremony without Kaczynski may now prove catastrophic for Tusk and the Polish-Russian relationship.
“People who laughed at Kaczynski before aren’t anymore,” said Yaroslav Kit, a scholar who divides his time between Poland and Ukraine.
“The details of the accident aren’t important now. People are looking at the essence,” he said. “The blame for this event will be put on the Russians. If they had been more open and there hadn’t been such opposition to Kaczynski” the April 10 tragedy might have been averted.
Others, on the contrary, said that the public grief and other emotions expressed by Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, and their openness in investigating the circumstances of the crash, have melted much ice in the relationship between the two nations.
But regardless of where the Polish-Russian relationship goes, most analysts agreed that after losing a great advocate in President Kaczynski, Kyiv’s relationship with Warsaw will now move to the back burner.
“Ukraine will lose out,” said Yaroslav Hrytsak, who heads the Institute for Historical Research at Lviv’s Ivan Franko National University. “The question is will the Russian-Polish relationship now develop at the cost of Ukraine.”
Natalia A. Feduschak is the Kyiv Post’s correspondent in western Ukraine. She can be reached at [email protected].
