Not teaching the Old School New School tricks
Just over two weeks after I wrote in my second-ever blog entry Old School, New School that deputy Minister of Finance Stanislaw Gomulka fits the current government like a square peg in round holes, he is out, ousted from his job for the very reasons named. I'll try to be more careful when I write about ministers in the future.
To recall: Gomulka was omnipresent in the press, talking passionately of deep reform projects and admitting openly what social groups would have to pay a price for their realization. Compare PM Donald Tusk of the liberal party PO, one of the first Polish politicians to break from Poland’s long-running tradition of high-drama politics. Tusk was elected on vague promises and style points. Journalists are suffering severe withdrawal. (Voters relief, polls note).
Here is Finance Minister Jan Rostowski's version of events for the daily Rzeczpospolita on Monday (April 21).
"Unfortunately, after several inopportune public comments I ordered Gomulka to not speak to the press. It seems, however, that the professor (Gomulka) is in greater need of media contact than of constructive work in the ministry. Everyone has the right to choose what they prefer."
If media exposure is what Gomulka prefers, he sure got it once leaving office and coming out from under that ill-fated media ban. Immediately after his resignation, he vowed not to discuss it in the press, citing ‘western standards’ that a resignation letter belong to its addressee. Within a day he was talking in cryptic terms about his departure. By Monday, we could all hear outright bashing of his former colleagues.
On a side note, I particularly like Rostowski's relations with the press. He has almost none. Not the loquacious revolutionary visionary, Rostowski is one of the only politicians in Poland that cannot be misquoted by the drama-starved media corps. Rostowski has said far too little to be misquoted. In effect, and in contrast o purebred Polish politicians, he limits himself to his message. The media flocks in droves when it is known he will speak somewhere, he issues his one sentence, he leaves the room. As a non-contributor to political drama, he is disliked by many journalists. One of a kind.
In the media (or for the media) the Gomulka departure has provided a long-sought release. While not nearly as lurid as the coalition crises of the prior government, the flow of texts detailing the "real reasons" for the departure was fast and furious.
A respected London School of Economics professor ousted from his post doesn't provide quite as much appeal as, say, a deputy PM arrested for corruption in a sting said to be organized illegally by the PM himself (such were the accusations floating around under the former regime), but you take what you can get.
On the opinion pages, a similar element was striking. Many of the very publications that made a living taking down the prior government when its officials took a strong public stand, now lamented the loss of the government's only 'ambitious, honorable visionary' etc. etc.
If Polish politics follows recent patterns, Gomulka will receive an offer to work think-tank style for the opposition and former governing party Law & Justice (PiS) which has filled many a program gap by hiring disillusioned departees from the now-governing party. While I have my doubts that the LSE professor with a strong pedigree for reforms would toy with a presently-troubled party with a history tinted with populism, the man has shown a strong penchant for visibility of late.
The path trod by the likes of former PiS Finance Minister (and one-time PO co-leader) Zyta Gilowska or former PiS Health Minister (and one-time PO notable) Zbigniew Religa is well worn.
And, Tusk or Rostowski efforts aside, high-drama doesn’t take a final curtain call quietly.
