Dead man's boots

There is an old phrase that means a position/trade is very hard to advance within because you have to wait for the person above you to leave or die in order to take their place, hence 'dead man's boots'.
Why am I talking of some smelly fellas footwear? Well, being the simple Englishman that I am, I naturally understood that when the Mayor (or President) of Lodz was booted out (excuse the over use of foot related vocabulary, but I couldn't resist) that a new one would be elected. Oh how wrong I was.
It is only due to a passing remark of a colleague that the truth was unveiled to this intrepid little explorer. For the best part of a year, Lodz has been in the hands of a prime-ministerial stand-in. PM Tusk simply appointed some bloke to do the job. Problem was that as an un-elected official he does not/did not hold all the powers of a full president.
The up-shot: money from one department can't be re-assigned to another etc... and Lodz remains in a mess. Only now after 9 months do we have a new PO President-elect. Hanna Zdanowska won the run-offs against SLD Dariusza Jońskiego with a roughly 60/40 split of the votes. That said only only 22.34 percent of the electorate turned out to vote and so 60% is not much, but hey!
Let's see what President Zdanowska is able to do with Lodz's often chaotic administration.

Is politics the new four-letter word?

It seems that politics has droped to such a low within the publics perception that politicians are doing everything to dissasociate themselves with their very bread and butter. At the moment it is election campaign time for the municipal elections in Poland and a recent series of billboards bear a bizzare slogan set of slogans. One for example has the slogan "Nie róbmy polityki. Budujmy bioska" which translates as "We don't do politics. We built football pitches." There are others along similar lines with versions saying : ... we build schools...we build bridges... etc. Well although this is all very well, and ofcourse every country needs a good infrastructure; should it be at the cost of politics?

We don't do politics. We build pitches.

This all sounds very familiar to anyone versed in mid 20th century Polish history. In the 1960's, when it was clear that the system was failing, the Party embarked on a program of building 1000 schools to celebrate 1000 years of Poland. A pure distraction; and my house is a result of this. The school and teachers' house (my house now) were opened in 1964 and closed in 1982 when it was finaly admitted that there was no need for a school in a village of 100 residents :) The question is are PO re-useing slogans from 1960s communist Poland?

You may ask what the problem is. Well, for a government and PM to base their campaign upon the principle of deneying their occupationand role in the country, we can asssume that their is a gigantic rift between the rulers and the ruled, so to speak. Only when politicians are able to stand tall and be proud will real politics start. In recent elections the turn-out has been very low ( 53,8% in 2007, an increase of 13,2% from 2005 ) and people have disengaged drom Warsaw. As I said before, roads and infrastructure are obviously important, yet peoples lives consist of more than just this and it is the politicians' jobs to nogotiate a path beween these complex issues. For example issues that need to be dealt with include pension and retirement laws (still based on a communist system) as well as health and medical insurance (ditto).

It is ofcourse easy to poke fun at an advert, and ofcourse that is all it is at the end of the day: an advert. It is not indivative per se of the political climate and attitudes in Warsaw. However, looking at the bigger picture, i would hazard a guess to say that it is somewhat close to the real picture.

Tameing the Bear!

Since the election i have heard mostly positive things about the new administration. What i think is most encouraging is PO's attitude to Germany and Russia. I am not alwasy a fan of either country, yet the PIS way of dealing with them was antagonistic at best. Hopefully we will see an ease in relations, especially with Russia and an opening up of the export market.

Is France leading the way?

While looking over articles about the upcoming French election (of which I must admit I haven't paid much interest),I was surprised to read some of the party names:

Francois Bayrou (Union for French Democracy)
Olivier Besancenot (Communist Revolutionary League)
Jose Bove (Anti-Globalist)
Marie-George Buffet (Communist)
Arlette Laguiller (Workers' Struggle)
Jean-Marie Le Pen (National Front)
Frederic Nihous (Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions)
Segolene Royal (Socialist)
Nicolas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement)
Gerard Schivardi (The Mayors' Candidate)
Philippe de Villiers (Movement for France)
Dominique Voynet (Greens)

I know that the French haven't really got over the fact that the words English and Lingua-Franca often appear together, but to be honest they seem to be speaking a different language to the rest of Europe. Reviewing the list one gets the feeling that this is a 1950s election portfolio (albeit with the addition of the Greens) and not one for the 2007 Election.

Maybe I have been clouded by the sameness of the UK political scene and am just unused to seeing political parties with real opinions and issues to debate and fight for. However, the issues that are being fought for could tear France and Europe apart.

I don't know who I want to win; and not being French its not really any of my business, which is a fact that Blair seems to have forgotten as he voices support of one of the candidates Nicolas Sarkozy . Anyway, I am digressing here, the point is whether the French have it right, and British people have forgotten what the real issues are about or whether the French are stuck in a time warp. If we look at the Polish electoral scene then we see a similarly diverse spectrum of parties. However, we all know the resultant problems of sustaining a credible and workable government.

Then there is the question of voter apathy, would a more diverse choice encourage more voters. Turnout at the Polish 05 election would suggest not as there was definitively plenty of choice, but few choosers. In terms of issue politics, recent gains by the British National Party in Britain would suggest that even in Britian, we are seeing a return to diverse issue dominated political parties.

For now we will have to wait and see for Sunday's first round results to show if France can indeed unite behind a candidate, when the options are so different.