Opposition leader rejects right-wing maverick proposal

Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Photo: Jakub Bułas/Wikimedia Commons/CC

“We are not interested in running a coalition with the leader of the New Right,” Kaczynski told the Fakt tabloid daily.

The announcement comes after Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a hot headed libertarian MP who managed to win a seat in the European parliamentary elections after his party won 7.5 percent of the ballot, gave an interview with Newsweek Polska in which he says that he could form a coalition with Kaczynski’s Law and Justice following the 2015 general election, despite not agreeing with the party’s policies.

“Law and Justice has a programme which is further to the left than the Democratic Left Alliance, but for the good of Poland I would [enter a coalition with them],” Korwin-Mikke said.

Korwin-Mikke’s remarks reflect the opinion that Law and Justice’s social policies are seen as more conservative, appealing to the Catholic electorate, while its fiscal policies have been described as more socialist.

Nevertheless, Kaczynski rebuffed the idea saying that Korwin-Mikke “is a person I have known quite well for many years”.

“[Korwin-Mikke] plays an odd role in Polish politics, not least a damaging one,” Kaczynski told the Fakt daily, going on to say that “we are not interested in a coalition as we are not interested in [being] disgraced.”

Trail of controversy

Janusz Korwin-Mikke hit headlines earlier in July during a plenary session in the European Parliament.

Deciding to deliver his speech in English during a debate on youth unemployment, Korwin-Mikke said that “four million niggers” lost their jobs in the US as a result of President John F. Kennedy signing a bill on the minimum wage in 1961, going on to claim that 20 million young Europeans were being treated as “negroes” as a result of the minimum wage.

The comments sparked outrage in the EP, with calls to penalise the MEP.
The incident came days after he slapped Michal Boni, another Polish MEP from the Civic Platform / European People’s Party, in the face.

Korwin-Mikke said that the incident dated back to a row he had had with Michal Boni in 1992. “It was a symbolic slap,” Korwin-Mikke added in an interview with the TVN24 broadcaster. (jb)