New right wing daily launched ahead of election

They describe CODZIENNA, as it is called for short, as a political tabloid of a conservative and patriotic character. Its initial print run is 200,000 copies.

In one of its stories, the new daily says that Polish bishops are to take public television to task for employing rock star Nergal in the Voice of Poland show. In the Church’s view, Nergal is a Satanist and a man who represents extremist sub-culture. In another story, CODZIENNA complains that several television stations refused to carry its adverts, one of them arguing that they ‘could provoke a sense of fear’. The daily quotes an official of the Helsinki Human Rights Foundation as saying that this is a most bizarre explanation. According to DZIENNIK GAZETA PRAWNA, the refusal to air the adverts is likely to prove better publicity for the daily than the TV spots.

Moving on to Poland’s pre-election scene, POLSKA THE TIMES devotes its frontpage story to the ruling Civic Platform’s bid to regain the confidence of young voters. This is a major task considering that fifty percent of the unemployed in Poland are in the 18 to 34 age bracket. According to Civic Platform’s unofficial opinion polls, a high percentage of young people are fed up with their career prospects and are not going to vote. In the final weeks of the campaign, the Prime Minister’s party will go out of its way to persuade them that by staying at home they do not have a say on how the country will be run over the next four years.

RZECZPOSPOLITA writes that the Civic Platform, which is at the top of popularity ratings, has managed to form a political movement which goes beyond the simple division into left and right. Instead of getting itself involved in the abstract and destructive ideological quarrels, Tusk’s party focused on the step-by-step modernization aimed at improving people’s living standards. In doing so, writes Jarosław Makowski of the Civic Platform’s think-tank, the party has taken over the best of the two worlds, that is the left and the right side of the political spectrum. It has thus proved that the famous philosopher Leszek Kołakowski was right when claiming that there is no contradiction in being a conservative-liberal socialist. That was RZECZPOSPOLITA.

All the papers carry extensive coverage of the European Culture Congress in Wroclaw. GAZETA WYBORCZA quotes from Professor Bauman’s opening address that what Europe is going through is not only an economic crisis but also an identity crisis. GAZETA WYBORCZA also has a special bi-lingual, Polish-English supplement on the newly-opened collection of contemporary Polish art at the National Museum in Wroclaw. It is one of the major side-line events of the European Culture Congress. (mk/pg)