However, Bijak concluded: "The only good alternative for Poland today is collaboration of the two forces....Neither of them can govern the country by itself without an explosion and without the danger of a civil adventure....Precisely this plebiscitary victory of Solidarnosc can - and undoubtedly must - change the attitude of the opposition itself. I think that it should decide to take joint 1. Interview in Le Figaro, June 7, 1989. 2. Gazeta Wyborcza, June 7, 1989. 3. Article in Preglad Wiadomosci Agencyjnych, quoted from Radio Free Europe, June 8. 4. Le Monde, June 7, 1989. 5. Fydrych ran for the same seat as Karol Modzelewski, an official Solidamosc candidate. He got an insignificant number of votes, less than 2%, but he campaigned rather for a boycott. 6. Polityka, June 10, 1989.
responsibility for running the country, for putting the economy right, for the fate of the reform."6
Such blackmail - either you collaborate or it's civil war — has been supported by all the imperialist leaderships. Meeting with Margaret Thatcher on June 12, General Jaruzelski was assured of the British government's support in renegotiating the Polish debt with the Paris Club and the IMF. President Mitterrand is on his way to Warsaw, and has already let it be understood that his government is not going to lag behind in offering aid to the economic transformations underway in Poland.
Mitterrand will also push to get the EEC to act in a concerted way in this area, as has been confirmed by [chair of the European Commission] Jacques Delors. The same noises have been coming from George Bush and Helmut Kohl.
POLAND
For the imperialist leaders, the choice is in fact a simple one - leaving General
Jaruzelski to his sad fate would mean taking the chance of lighting a revolutionary bonfire in Europe.
Helping him out of his straits on the other hand means not only avoiding the worst, but being able to dictate conditions for opening up the Polish market - and in time the other COMECON [Eastern bloc] markets — to imperialist products and capital.
Financial dependence of union on Western backers
Even if this opening may be limited and conditional, the game is worth the candle in these times of capitalist crisis.
The imperialists, moreover, are taking advantage of the influence they acquired over the Solidarnos leadership during martial law - an influence owing at least partly to the financial dependence of the Solidarnosc apparatus on Western aid in those years — to push the union to insure the process of transformation against social risks.
The Solidarnose leadership is walking backwards into the new political situation. In the spring and summer of 1988, it did everything possible to keep the strikes from spreading and then to stop them. Since then, it has tried to extinguish the social fires every time the wind of austerity revived them. The round-table accord that it signed in April has been seen by a good number of activists as a retreat.
In view of the extent of the defeat of the regime's candidates, the Solidarnosc leaders are trying to restore a bit of their legitimacy in the second round. On June 8,
Henryk Wujec, secretary of Lech
Walesa's
Civic
Committee, called for voting in the second round for the government candidates in order to choose the best.
In a letter addressed to all the provincial committees, he said that this is a "matter of honor"
and "civic duty." Solidarnosc will organize rallies to enable these candidates to get a hearing.
Another indication of the embarrassment of the Solidarnosc leaders is that already on
June 5, Solidarnosc spokesperson
Onyszkiewicz stressed
Janusz that there could be no losers because all the candidates had a common electoral program - the program of the round-table."
The Solidarnos leadership's proposals in the crucial area of economic reform do not differ from the government's. In fact, this was one of the principal problems of this election, and may, to some extent explain the high level of abstention. For example, the Civic Committee's electoral program stipulated: "We are going to demand a change in property relations. It is necessary to create the juridical bases for privatization or for a real socialization.
"State property must be in large measure transferred, sold or rented, to cities and local governments, to enterprises, through the creation of limited companies including cooperative and private capital. The state must not directly engage in economic activity."
In the wake of the elections, Lech Walesa thanked George Bush for the aid that he had already given, and pressed him to step up economic and financial aid so as to make it possible to expand foreign investment in Poland and convert the Polish debt into shares in the country's industry. He asked an American millionaire of Polish origin, Barbara Piasecka-Johnson, who has offered to buy out the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk, now in liquidation, to deliver his letter to the American president.
Before the the vote, moreover, in his visits to Italy, Strasbourg and Brussels, Walesa launched into appeals to Western investors to come to Poland and make their profits there.
The fact remains that the Polish economy is going from bad to worse. Industrial production in the first quarter of 1989 nose-dived, as a result of bottlenecks that the economic reforms have multiplied instead of eliminating. Market supply has felt the impact of this. Inflation has already topped an annually adjusted average of 100%. The free-market exchange rate for the zloty has collapsed, and price rises of around 300% for food products are expected in the fall.
If they accept the scheme of a great coalition in the parliament, as they have said they are ready to, the Solidarnosc leaders will have to take responsibility for these unpopular measures.
Decisive tests are on the horizon
The question of power is raising its head again in Poland. The Solidarnosc leaders are carefully holding back from seeking a solution to this question. Without anyone formulating it, the slogan of "all power to Solidarnos" has emerged from the ballot boxes.
In trying to preserve the status quo at any price — and even appearing to be a crutch for the bureaucracy — the Solidarnosc apparatus is discrediting itself and helping to divide and disorient the workers. Nonetheless, the June 4 election indicates that decisive tests are on the horizon. *
19 7. Tygodnik Powszechny, May 7, 1989.
TURKEY Beginning of the end for Özal regime TURGUT ÖZAL's government finally yielded in early May to the massive mobilization of public sector workers that had been shaking Turkey since mid-April. It conceded a 140% wage increase. The trade-union federation Türk-Is had been demanding 170% (just to return to the 1986 level of living standards). This agreement is far from satisfactory for the 600,000 workers, who had shown their tenacity, ingenuity and combativity in the preceding weeks, fighting to recover wage levels that have halved in 10 years. Nevertheless, it is the first workers' victory after nine years of silence following the 1980 coup d'état.
The repression of the May 1 demonstration, which left one person dead in Istanbul, proved that the Özal government -extremely weakened by the economic crisis and its defeat in the March 26 municipal elections - was losing control of the situation.
An early general election has now become inevitable, and with it the probable fall of the present government, which will sound the death knell of the edifice built by the generals. FUAT ORÇUN istered electors has grown by 1,750,000 since 1987 [at 21, all Turkish citizens are automatically counted as qualified voters], the number of votes cast went down by 1,850,000. It could be claimed that the vast majority of these apolitical abstentionists had voted for the governmental party in 1987. On the other hand - and most importantly - the right wing parties that had been banned by the military after the 1980 coup d'état have resumed their place in the political arena, and have begun to win back their electorate from ANAP, which had profited from the political vacuum.
Islamic Party makes most electoral progress
The comparison of the results of the municipal elections in March with those of the legislative elections in 1977 (the last general elections before the coup is very instructive. The SHP and the DYP! have won back nearly two-thirds of their electorate in the cities and in the countryside. But it is Erbakan's Islamic Party (RP), with 9.8%, that has made the most progress, even beating the Islamic score in 1977.2 This result is close to the 10% needed nationally to get deputies elected. Consequently, at future elections, this party will be no longer handicapped by the "tactical voting" that has worked to the advantage of ANAP or the DYP. The Islamic Party exists mainly in some regions of Kurdistan (areas traditionally under Islamic influence), but it has also grown fairly rapidly in some big urban centres.
As for Colonel Türkes' fascist Nationalist Workers' Party (MÇP), it "only" won 4.2% of the vote, and is still a long way from matching the score of 6.4% achieved by its predecessor, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP, the famous "Grey Wolves"). 1. The SHP is the heir of the People's Republic Party (CHP) of former premier Bulent Ecevit. The CHP got almost 41% of the vote in 1977. The DYP is the heir of the Justice Party (AP) of former premier Suleyman Demirel. The AP got 36.9% in 1977. The CHP and the AP were banned by the military in 1981. 2. The RP is the successor of Erbakan's National Salvation Party (MSP), which won 8.6% in 1977.
F ACING the erosion of its popu-
Clarity, Turgut Özal's Motherland Party (ANAP) has already called one snap election, in October 1987, in order to forestall the worst. It was the second time in the history of the republic that the government had resorted to an early election. In spite of substantial losses, the regime nevertheless succeeded in getting two-thirds of the seats in parliament with only 36% of the vote (see /V 133, January 25, 1988).
Bolstered by this relative victory, and again for the same reasons, the ANAP held a referendum in September 1988 to bring forward the date of the municipal elections scheduled for March 1989 by four months (see IV 153, December 12, 1988). After being repudiated by a 65% "No" vote, Özal had to resign himself to holding the municipal elections on the date initially planned.
Of course, everyone expected a setback for ANAP. But, unlike what has happened in other countries during a transition from a military dictatorship to a parliamentary regime, Turkey had never seen a real radicalization or large-scale reactions either to human rights violations or to the nine years of austerity policies. So this year's 20 March 26 municipal elections were a veritable earthquake (even if its scale is disInternational Viewpoint #166 • June 26, 1989 puted) by comparison with the extremely slow evolution of the political situation since the 1980 coup. With only 21.75% of the vote, the ANAP has become the third party, far behind the Social Democratic People's Party (SHP), with 28%; and the Party of the Just Road (DYP), with 26%.