Des difficultés d'entrer en politique : le mouvement Samoobrona dans la Pologne postcommuniste

Abstract

Examining the participation of the leaders of the Samoobrona agricultural union in the 1993 Polish legislative elections allows one to consider the manner in which the electoral arena has been occupied by “newcomers” drawn from outside of the established political forces. While the rules governing competition have yet to be fully determined, these unions, which have more experience of peasant demonstrations than of electoral jousting, have devoted themselves to developing and promoting a dynamic and original platform. Far from being reducible to its strategic dimension alone, theirs is an apparently ad hoc effort aiming to reconcile the electoral constraints on candidates with the willfully atypical nature of their stance. However, this double game of adaptation and demarcation has proven to be particularly tricky for actors largely deprived of the resources that are becoming dominant in Post-Communist Poland. Struggling to control the dynamic of their campaign, the leaders of Samoobrona have ultimately found themselves incapable of redefining relations of representation in their favor and transforming their small group into a lasting political enterprise. ■