The Homeland Patriotic Movement (, RPO) was a right-wing electoral coalition created for the 1998 Polish local elections. It was a coalition of numerous right-wing formations as well as an environmentalist party and left-wing trade unions, and sought to present a right-wing alternative to the centre-right Christian-democratic Solidarity Electoral Action. The founding parties of the coalition were a part of the Solidarity Electoral Action in the 1997 Polish parliamentary election, but left it over political and ideological disagreements. The main party in the coalition was the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms, renamed to Bloc for Poland (). Despite running an aggressive and dynamic campaign, the coalition finished 6th and won 3.19% of the popular vote, winning 256 council seats in total (out of 63.767), including 2 out of 855 seats in the voivodeship sejmiks. The coalition dissolved shortly after the election, but its members continued their cooperation, founding the Alternative Social Movement for the 2001 Polish parliamentary election.
The coalition presented itself as an anti-establishment, independent force that represented the "true right", contrasting itself with the centre-right Solidarity Electoral Action. It opposed the Polish membership in the European Union and NATO, postulating the need to protect Polish agriculture and production from foreign capital, and criticizing the European Union for neoliberal economic policies. It represented the Catholic-nationalist and traditional-conservative faction of the Polish post-Solidarity movement opposed to the policies of the moderate centre-right government. Despite being described as "radically right-wing", the coalition presented a redistributive economic program, decrying wealth inequality and poverty. It opposed privatization and market deregulation, and postulated the need to re-nationalize Polish economy along with providing extensive social welfare and subsidies for unprofitable workplaces. It took a hostile stance to private industry, portraying it as unaccountable and arguing that business owners should not be able to earn 10 times more than their employees.
History Origins The coalition was formed from the initiative of the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms (BBWR), which was a Christian-democratic, centre-right party formed by the supporters of President Lech Wałęsa. The BBWR was to be the official party of the President Wałęsa and represent his interests and political agenda in the parliament. Wałęsa distanced himself from the party after the 1993 Polish parliamentary election, in which the BBWR massively underperformed, receiving 746,653 votes (5.41% of the popular vote) and narrowly crossing the 5% electoral threshold.
In the 1995 Polish presidential election, Wałęsa started out with abysmal approval, but the race soon became competitive as Wałęsa started regaining support over the course of the campaign. However, the numerous right-wing parties and formations were unable to unite themselves in support of Wałęsa, leading to a victory of the post-communist, social-democratic Aleksander Kwaśniewski. Following his defeat, Wałęsa formed the Christian-democratic Christian Democracy of the Third Polish Republic, which joined a new project to unite all centre-right Polish parties under a single banner - the Solidarity Electoral Action.
Wałęsa then appealed to BBWR to withdraw their candidature for the 1997 Polish parliamentary election in favour of endorsing the Solidarity Electoral Action. However, most of the party refused to do so, and ran in the election anyway. The party won 1.36% of the popular vote and failed to cross the 5% electoral threshold, losing all of its seats in the Sejm. In November 1997, the activists of the party transformed the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms into Bloc for Poland ().
In the 1997 election, the Solidarity Electoral Action gained the plurality of seats and formed a majority government together with the liberal Freedom Union. The new centre-right government pursued free-market reforms and advocated speedy integration of Poland into the European Union as well as NATO. This alienated a fraction of Polish right-wing politicians, with many conservatives and nationalists holding anti-EU and anti-NATO views, along with being critical of the free market to varying degrees. Critical of the course of the new centre-right government, the former Prime Minister Jan Olszewski decided to form the Homeland Patriotic Movement to contest the 1998 local election with a handful of minor right-wing parties that split from the Solidarity Electoral Action. Foundation On 28 July 1998, the Bloc for Poland, together with Movement for Reconstruction of Poland (ROP), Confederation of Independent Poland - Patriotic Camp (, KPN-OP) and the National Association of Pensioners of the Republic of Poland (, KPEiR RP) signed an agreement to form a coalition for the 1998 local elections. They were then joined by the National Democratic Party (, SND) associated with the right-wing National Democracy movement as well as the Polish Ecological Party "Greens" (, PPE-Z), an environmentalist party. Some right-leaning trade unions also joined the coalition, such as the Trade Union "Contra" (). It was also joined by the left-wing populist Free Trade Union "August 80".
The main electoral opponent of the Homeland Patriotic Movement was the Solidarity Electoral Action, which as a grand coalition of all centre-right parties and movements, tried to unite all right-leaning Polish voters under its banner - by 1998, Polish politics seemed to be consolidating into a two-party system between the centre-right, Christian-democratic Solidarity Electoral Action, and the social-democratic, post-communist Democratic Left Alliance. Attempting to emerge as the 'third force' in the election, the Homeland Patriotic Movement was seen as a right-wing equivalent of the left-wing Social Alliance, which was a coalition of left-wing parties such as Polish People's Party, Labour Union, National Party of Retirees and Pensioners and the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland. The Social Alliance portrayed itself as the 'independent left' and sought to provide a left-wing alternative to Democratic Left Alliance, while also challenging the emerging two-party system. 1998 campaign The coalition ran an aggressive campaign and was highly critical of the Solidarity Electoral Alliance. The coalition bought slots in public television stations, and was mostly represented by the former Prime Minister Jan Olszewski, who accused the Solidarity Electoral Action of betraying right-wing voters and finding a working compromise with former communists instead of persecuting them. He claimed that the party was supposed to "hold accountable those who ordered the shooting of their own people and sold themselves to foreign powers". The public service broadcaster, Telewizja Polska, interrupted the coalition's broadcasts in October 1998. Telewizja Polska argued that it had to stop the broadcast as it violating the 'personal rights' of attacked politicians. The National Electoral Commission ruled that Telewizja Polska had no right to interrupt the broadcast. The coalition was praised for its slick and provocative advertisements, full of "videos with fabricated scenes, in-house studio run by two presenters, factual and positive content".
The main focus of the coalition was the Solidarity Electoral Action, which the Homeland Patriotic Movement decried as "post-communists posing as conservative opposition". The coalition particularly attacked the plans of the Solidarity Electoral Action to bring Poland into the European Union and NATO; the RPO opposed Polish membership in both structured and criticized the European Union as a neoliberal institution that wants to build unity on "money and killing identities". The coalition stressed the need to protect Polish production and Polish property "against foreign hands" and against the "threat posed by accession to the EU". Economically however, the RPO ran to the right of the Homeland Patriotic Movement, promoting nationalization, social welfare and social market economy. It condemned privatization and presented it as the main cause for unemployment, as caused by unprofitable workplaces being sold out. The coalition presented itself as one that would protect the workers from unemployment by nationalizing and subsidizing unprofitable workplaces instead of privatizing them, and argued that it would seek to prioritize basic needs of citizens instead of "glamorous or spectacular projects" that the Polish government was pursuing.
The coalition had its own newspaper, the White Eagle (), which completemented its television advertisements. The party ran on slogans such as "Fatherland of human affairs" and "So much homeland as property and justice", trying to present its left-leaning economic stances and concern with wealth inequality and economic justice. It had around 14000 members in total and pledged to pursue the economic enfranchisement of the local population if elected to regional councils. It presented proposals such as cheap communical flats and housing, along with development of education. Despite identifying the Solidarity Electoral Action as its main electoral opponent, the Homeland Patriotic Movement would form local coalitions with it in regions where the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance had an electoral advantage; this coalition took place in places like the Słupsk Voivodeship. Ultimately, the Homeland Patriotic Movement performed best in places where it did form coalitions with the Solidarity Electoral Action.
The Homeland Patriotic Movement attracted widespread media attention, mostly thanks to the presence of former Prime Minister Jan Olszewski - its coverage was equal to that of the "independent left-wing" Social Alliance. Ultimately however, in the 1998 Polish local elections, the Homeland Patriotic Movement won 3.19% of the popular vote and finished 6th. The result was considered disappointing, especially since the Solidarity Electoral Action was successful in capturing the right-wing vote, finishing first in the election. The Homeland Patriotic Movement was also overtaken by the Polish Family Association (), a National-Catholic coalition supported by the popular Catholic media Radio Maryja. The Polish Family Association won 5.2% of the popular vote. The campaign of the left-wing Social Alliance was considering successful, as it captured 12% of the popular vote and finished third. Aftermath In total, the coalition won 256 councillor seats in total out of 63.767, including 2 seats in the voivodeship sejmiks (out of 855), 48 provincial (powiat) seats (out of 10.290), and 206 municipal (gmina) seats (out of 52.622). This amounted to 0.4% of all available seats. Despite winning a greater share of the popular vote, the Polish Family Association won even less seats because of the very high regionalization of its vote - it won 151 seats in total, or 0.2% of all available seats. In contrast, in the 1997 Polish parliamentary election, the parties that founded the Homeland Patriotic Movement won 7% of the popular vote in total. The failure of both the Homeland Patriotic Movement and Polish Family Association was attributed to the Solidarity Electoral Action, which co-opted key proposals of both committees and united the right-wing vote. The Solidarity Electoral Action ultimately got 20 times more seats than its right-wing rivals. It was found the Homeland Patriotic Movement performed the best in places where it entered tactical anti-postcommunist coalition with the Solidarity Electoral Action.