Center Alliance

Poland Table of Contents

An outspoken Walesa supporter determined to end the political dominance of the intellectual elite in the Citizens' Parliamentary Club, Jaroslaw Kaczynski formed the Center Alliance in May 1990. The Center Alliance supported a strong political center embodying the ideals of Solidarity and Christian ethics. With the election of its candidate for president, Walesa, and the appointment of Kaczynski as the president's chief of staff, the Center Alliance became one of the most influential political organizations in the country.

The Center Alliance platform for the parliamentary elections of October 1991 called for accelerated economic reform, privatization, rapid decommunization, and a strongly pro-Western foreign policy, including full membership in NATO. Considering its prominent position in the government and media and its large national membership, the party fared rather poorly in the 1991 elections. Its popular vote total yielded forty-four Sejm and nine Senate seats. The Center Alliance made its last show of political power in engineering the selection of its candidate, Jan Olszewski, to lead the coalition government in December 1991. By mid-1992, however, the influence of the party had waned because of a bitter personal rift between Kaczynski and Walesa, the demise of the Olszewski government, and the party's decision not to participate in the ruling coalition of Hanna Suchocka.

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress