Poland’s Pulse in the Blogopshere · Global Voices
Jordan & Maria Seidel

We’re looking through the Polish language blogs first, this time, as the political situation in the country generated a lot of heat in the blogosphere, as well as managed to get the world’s attention for a while.
Here's the low down… After the break up of the coalition, the ruling PiS scrambled for majority. While courting PSL – “the other farmers’ party” in the parliament – they openly appealed to former partner’s MPs to leave Samoobrona and back up the government. Andrzej Lepper was swift to punish the few opportunists – he pulled out promissory notes which he apparently had each party member sign upon joining, and promised to execute the “debts” as penalty. Populists’ leader also told the press that ruling party members were approaching his MPs with “corruption offers.” Two journalists of the private TVN channel decided to follow the story. They came in contact (sources differ on “how”) with Samoobrona’s Renata Beger – a controversial MP with a pending court case for election fraud – and got her cooperation in taping two important PiS politicians negotiating her defection.
The Beatroot offers an English transcript of the secretly taped meeting. Among the demands that they were prepared to meet were: securing Beger a high post in the Ministry of Agriculture and mandates in local elections for her family members. “Negotiators” also suggested that they could help Ms. Beger with her legal problems, and pay off her promissory note with a special fund created with parliment's money.
Bloggers differ in opinion which offer was more outrageous.
Kurczeblade says:
Considering Ms. Beger qualifications – or rather lack thereof – it cannot be called transfering responsibility for a certain area of public administration. The post of the Secretary of State is then meant as a form of material gain, promise of prestigious and profitable function – a bribe for supporting the government.
Radecky is more upset about the nepotism, while Grzesiek sees the worst offence in this:
Minister Lipinski offered covering Samoobrona defectors’ “debts” from the Parliment funds. As the Parliment doesn't generate any profit, said money would be coming from our taxes. This way all of us would be paing for certain MPs stupidity. Except for the MPs themselves, of course, as they don't pay taxes.
Switching linguistic gears to the English-language bloggers in Poland… Uplifting blogging from Boo, as she notes graffiti exchanges in a local elevator.
Each time I went up and down in the lift, I berated myself for having forgotten once again to bring any kind of cleaning supplies. It stayed for a couple of days and then someone a little less forgetful than me cleaned it off. I was happy to see it [anti-semite graffiti] gone, and then surprised when it was replaced with this:
Raw Translation: “All anti-semites are pitiful creatures with complexes, you are (backward?) too. Long live all races.” – by Becca
And writing is on the wall for Poland's coalition government, according to Edward Lucas. Unfortunately, the wall could be mistaken for Humpty Dumpty's as the coalition might be in an irreparable state.
RICKETY, ineffectual and quarrelsome, Poland's coalition has broken apart. If it cannot be glued back together, an election will be held, probably on November 26th.
And ballots may have a few less names on them in November over the potential fall-out of a Watergate-style scandal shaping up, according to The Warsaw Station:
I'm beginning to wonder whether PiS won't find a way out of this one. The fact that Lipinski is offering positions in the government – which we hear here – is hardly surprising. In fact, it's to be expected. From this American's point of view, this seems to be how parliamentary politics works.
However, even more scandalous for Warsaw Station is the threat of financial retribution by one of the coalition Party for members who abandon the cause:
Lipinski says he could find a way for the Sejm to pay the “penalty” (worth several hundred thousand zloty) that the deputies leaving Self-Defense will have to pay for deserting their party.
And while there aren’t too many pretty faces in Polish politics, Kinuk manages to remind us that the Miss World pageant was held recently in Poland.
That’s the Poland blogopshere update! Until next time – Do widzenia i powodzenia!