Libertas Poland

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Libertas Polska
Leader Originally Daniel Pawłowiec [1] [2]
later Declan Ganley [3] [4]
Founded~2006/7 [5] (as Pawlowiec's Lewica i Demokraci)
2 February 2009. [6] (announced as Libertas Polska)
24 February 2009 [5] (renamed to Libertas Polska)
Dissolved2014
Headquarters Aleje Ujazdowskie 22/3, 00-478 Warsaw [7]
Ideology Anti-Lisbon Treaty
Euroscepticism
European affiliation Libertas Party Limited
European Parliament group none
Colours blue, gold
Website
referendumdlapolski.pl

Libertas Poland (Libertas Polska, LP) was a political party in Poland. It contended the 2009 European Parliament elections under a common banner with Libertas Party Limited, the organization founded by Declan Ganley.

Contents

Pawlowiec's Lewica i Demokraci

Before the 2007 Polish parliamentary election, three LPR then-members, Cyprian Gutkowski, Daniel Pawłowiec and Sebastian Jargut, registered a party called Lewica i Demokraci, (Left and Democrats). [5] The party was a party-in-name-only designed to frustrate [5] the party of the same name, which was forced to register itself as SLD+SdPl+PD+UP – Lewica i Demokraci (LiD) instead. [5]

Declan Ganley visited [8] [9] Poland on Friday 9 January 2009 [10] to discuss terms for the formation of the Poland branch of Libertas with representatives from Forward Poland (NP), PSL Piast and Prawica Rzeczypospolitej (PR). [10] Ganley insisted that the Poland Libertas party used the word "Libertas" in the title but the party politicians were concerned that the non-Polish name would deter voters. [10] The name "Forward Poland – Libertas" (Naprzód Polsko – Libertas) was suggested as a compromise name [10] should NP decide to ally with Libertas.

On 1 February 2009, [11] Ganley spoke to the inaugural Warsaw meeting of the Referendum Committee (Komitetu Referendalnego), an organization advocating that referendums be held prior to treaty ratifications by Poland. [11] [12] The speech was filmed and placed on YouTube (prolog, part 1, part 2). The meeting attendance was estimated at 700 [12] or 500 [11] and attendees included [11] [13] Mirosław Orzechowski (LPR), Zdzisław Podkański (PSL), Krzysztof Filipek and Danuta Hojarska (once Samoobrona, now Party of Regions) and Antoni Tyszka (UPR), Konrad Bonisławski (head of All-Polish Youth) and Krzysztof Bosak (former LPR MP).

On 2 February 2009 [6] [11] a press conference was given [7] in which the head of the Referendum Committee, former LPR MP Daniel Pawłowiec, was named as head [1] [2] [7] of Libertas Poland (Libertas Polska, LP), and the Referendum Committee offices at Aleje Ujazdowskie 22/3, 00-478 Warsaw were named as the headquarters of Libertas Poland. [7]

Although the party had been announced, it did not exist under that name at that point: registering a political party in Poland is a lengthy process. [5] Instead, Pawlowiec's Lewica i Demokraci was renamed to Libertas Polska, the new name being registered on 24 February 2009 [5]

Position

On 11 February 2009, Libertas Poland held a press conference concerning the emergency meeting of the European Council. [14] In that press conference, Libertas Poland demanded that the Polish government should reduce VAT following the UK example, [14] propose an EU joint energy policy, [14] and reopen the labor markets of Germany and Austria to Polish workers. [14]

Affiliates

Libertas attempted to get other parties to affiliate (run candidates under a common list) to it. Libertas's search for affiliates was assisted by Roman Giertych [15] and Wojciech Wierzejski, [16] with Wierzejski resigning from the leadership of LPR to devote his time to the unification of the Polish patriotic, nationalist, conservative and Christian right under a Libertas list. [17]

Parties that did affiliate to Libertas

The parties that affiliated with Libertas Poland and the parent organization Libertas.eu are as follows:

Forward Poland (Naprzód Polsko, NP) originally rejected [18] cooperation with Libertas because they felt that Libertas did not reflect their desire for a more independent Poland. [18] PSL Piast (a.k.a. Stronnictwo "Piast") also initially rejected [18] [19] cooperation with Libertas for similar reasons to Forward Poland [18] and because the party did not have a Polish name. [19] Instead, the two parties planned to run their own combined list (Naprzód Polsko – Piast) in the 2009 elections. [20]
But the two parties eventually decided to affiliate to Libertas [21] and candidates from the two parties appeared on the Libertas lists. [22] The decision to affiliate was not unanimously welcomed within the two parties. [15]
There was a controversy involving allegations of forged signatures in constituency number 11 [23] and the Naprzód Polsko – Piast list did field candidates in that constituency. [20]
Partia Regionów considered running under a Libertas list. [19] Partia Regionów's president, Bolesław Borysiuk, negotiated cooperation with Libertas Polska [24] and he announced in PR's inaugural Congress that PR's candidates were likely to run under a Libertas list alongside Libertas Polska, [25] and this did in fact occur. [22]
As of 9 March 2009, League of Polish Families (LPR) were still considering whether to run under a Libertas list or form their own, either by themselves or with UPR, or Prawica Rzeczypospolitej. [26] But by 19 March, Ganley was distancing Libertas from LPR. [27] Nevertheless, Libertas and LPR were still in ongoing discussions on Friday 27 March 2009 [28] about running under a common list. By 21 April 2009, LPR had agreed to affiliate to Libertas [21] and their candidates did run under the Libertas list [22] [29] instead of their own list [30] in the 2009 European Parliament elections.
Organizacja Narodu Polskiego – Liga Polska affiliated to Libertas. [31] [32] [33]
Zjednoczenie Chrześcijańsko-Narodowe (ZChN) affiliated to Libertas. [31] [32] [34]

Parties that did not affiliate to Libertas

The parties that considered affiliating with Libertas Poland and the parent organization Libertas.eu, but did not, are as follows:

Prawica Rzeczypospolitej considered Libertas to have Eurofederalist aspects and rejected Libertas accordingly. [35] No Prawica Rzeczypospolitej candidates appeared on the Libertas list in the 2009 European Parliament elections. [22]
Law and Justice (PiS) personnel [3] were mentioned by Pawłowiec as possible Libertas candidates, although no names were given. [3] Libertas tried to get PiS to affiliate to it [36] but it did not do so, [37] and instead ran a full list of its own, [38] although one of its members (Slawomir Ligecki [39] ) did defect to Libertas.

Personnel

PersonPosition
Declan Ganley President [3] [4]
Daniel Pawłowiec Originally President, [14] later vice-president. [3] [4] Former LPR MP
Artur Zawisza Vice-president [14] and former PR MP

TVP controversy

On 20 March 2009, journalist Hanna Lis refused to do a TVP interview with Declan Ganley. [40] Controversy promptly arose revolving around LPR's Roman Giertych [40] and whether LPR were encouraging coverage of Libertas on TVP [40] via Piotr Farfał the President of TVP [41] and a member of LPR. [40] Hanna Lis, [42] Piotr Kraśko, [42] and Jarosław Kulczycki, [42] the three presenters of a nightly news program, took sick leave in protest, forcing the news to be presented by Marcin Szczepański. [42]

European Parliament elections, 2009

Libertas Poland started work on/before 20 March 2009 on collecting sufficient signatures to field candidates, [3] [4] although the number and names of those candidates was not specified. [3] [4] By 2 May 2008, a Libertas Election Committee (Komitet Wyborczy Libertas) had been formed and its list consisted of 130 [31] candidates, later falling to 128. [22] The breakdown was as follows: [31]

Party/Movement of
which candidates were
current/former members
AcronymNumber of
candidates on
Libertas list
Number of
first-placed
candidates on
Libertas list
Law and Justice PiS10
Organizacja Narodu Polskiego - Liga Polska ?10
Zjednoczenie Chrześcijańsko-Narodowe ZChN10
Radio Maryja n/a22
Libertas PolskaLP32
Forward Poland NP62
Partia Regionów PR61
Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe "Piast" PSL Piast131
Liga Polskich Rodzin LPR402
othern/a573

Results

See also

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References

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  19. 1 2 3 "Lubelszczyzna – desant o. Rydzyka" (English translation). Gazeta Wyborcza. 26 March 2009.{{cite web}}: External link in |format= (help)
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  34. "Libertas list candidates in constituency number 8". Archived from the original on 23 May 2009.
  35. "Jurek: Nie działamy w izolacji" (English translation). dziennik.pl. 9 March 2009.{{cite web}}: External link in |format= (help)
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  41. "FARFAŁ PREZESEM TELEWIZJI PUBLICZNEJ: Będą czystki w TVP". TVN24.pl. 29 December 2008.
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