Libertas Poland


Libertas Poland was a political party in Poland. It contended the 2009 European Parliament elections under a common banner with Libertas Party Limited, the organization founded by Declan Ganley.

Pawlowiec's Lewica i Demokraci

Before the 2007 Polish parliamentary election, three LPR then-members, Cyprian Gutkowski, Daniel Pawłowiec and Sebastian Jargut, registered a party called Lewica i Demokraci,. The party was a party-in-name-only designed to frustrate the party of the same name, which was forced to register itself as SLD+SdPl+PD+UP – Lewica i Demokraci instead.
Declan Ganley visited Poland on Friday 9 January 2009 to discuss terms for the formation of the Poland branch of Libertas with representatives from Forward Poland, PSL Piast and Prawica Rzeczypospolitej. Ganley insisted that the Poland Libertas party used the word "Libertas" in the title but the party politicians were concerned that the non-Polish name would deter voters. The name "Forward Poland - Libertas" was suggested as a compromise name should NP decide to ally with Libertas.
On February 1, 2009, Ganley spoke to the inaugural Warsaw meeting of the Referendum Committee, an organization advocating that referendums be held prior to treaty ratifications by Poland. The speech was filmed and placed on YouTube. The meeting attendance was estimated at 700 or 500 and attendees included
Mirosław Orzechowski, Zdzisław Podkański, Krzysztof Filipek and Danuta Hojarska and Antoni Tyszka, Konrad Bonisławski and Krzysztof Bosak.
On February 2, 2009 a press conference was given in which the head of the Referendum Committee, former LPR MP Daniel Pawłowiec, was named as head of Libertas Poland, and the Referendum Committee offices at Aleje Ujazdowskie 22/3, 00-478 Warsaw were named as the headquarters of Libertas Poland.
Although the party had been announced, it did not exist under that name at that point: registering a political party in Poland is a lengthy process. Instead, Pawlowiec's Lewica i Demokraci was renamed to Libertas Polska, the new name being registered on 24 February 2009

Position

On 11 February 2009, Libertas Poland held a press conference concerning the emergency meeting of the European Council. In that press conference, Libertas Poland demanded that the Polish government should reduce VAT following the UK example, propose an EU joint energy policy, and reopen the labor markets of Germany and Austria to Polish workers.

Affiliates

Libertas attempted to get other parties to affiliate to it. Libertas's search for affiliates was assisted by Roman Giertych and Wojciech Wierzejski, with Wierzejski resigning from the leadership of LPR to devote his time to the unification of the Polish patriotic, nationalist, conservative and Christian right under a Libertas list.

Parties that did affiliate to Libertas

The parties that affiliated with Libertas Poland and the parent organization Libertas.eu are as follows:
The parties that considered affiliating with Libertas Poland and the parent organization Libertas.eu, but did not, are as follows:

TVP controversy

On 20 March 2009, journalist Hanna Lis refused to do a TVP interview with Declan Ganley. Controversy promptly arose revolving around LPR's Roman Giertych and whether LPR were encouraging coverage of Libertas on TVP via Piotr Farfał the President of TVP and a member of LPR. Hanna Lis, :pl:Piotr Kraśko|Piotr Kraśko, and :pl:Jarosław Kulczycki|Jarosław Kulczycki, the three presenters of a nightly news program, took sick leave in protest, forcing the news to be presented by :pl:Marcin Szczepański|Marcin Szczepański.

European Parliament elections, 2009

Libertas Poland started work on/before 20 March 2009 on collecting sufficient signatures to field candidates, although the number and names of those candidates was not specified. By 2 May 2008, a Libertas Election Committee had been formed and its list consisted of 130 candidates, later falling to 128. The breakdown was as follows:
Party/Movement of
which candidates were
current/former members		AcronymNumber of
candidates on
Libertas list		Number of
first-placed
candidates on
Libertas list
Law and JusticePiS10
:pl:Organizacja Narodu Polskiego - Liga Polska|Organizacja Narodu Polskiego - Liga Polska?10
Zjednoczenie Chrześcijańsko-NarodoweZChN10
Radio Maryjan/a22
Libertas PolskaLP32
Forward PolandNP62
Partia RegionówPR61
Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe "Piast"PSL Piast131
Liga Polskich RodzinLPR402
othern/a573

Results