Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Aleksander Kwasniewski [ alεksandεr kfaɕɲεfski ] listen? / I (* November 15, 1954 in Białogard, Poland) was the third President of the Third Polish Republic. His term of office ran from 23 December 1995 to 23 December 2005 on two terms.
Life
Kwasniewski was already in the time of the People's Republic of Poland between 1985 and 1987 the government of Zbigniew Messner as a youth minister and was sponsored by Wojciech Jaruzelski. In the period of transition from the communist People's Republic to the present parliamentary democratic Poland, he took on the government side to the Round -table talks with the Solidarity trade union in part.
From 1990 to 1995 he was chairman of he co-founded the Social Democratic Party SdRP, in 1991 the electoral alliance SLD joined. In 1995, he was able to prevail in the presidential elections against Lech Wałęsa and was on 23 December 1995 President of Poland. With its exit from the SdRP in the same year he was claiming to represent all the Poles across party lines. In 2000 he was re-elected in the first ballot for a second term.
Kwasniewski led Poland into NATO in 1999 and 2004 in the European Union. During his tenure he also maintained particularly good relations with the President of the Polish neighbors Valdas Adamkus (Lithuania ), Rudolf Schuster ( Slovakia) and Václav Havel (Czech Republic). Excellent relations between Kwasniewski and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma were. Kwasniewski was during the crisis in Ukraine in November 2004 together with Lithuanian President Adamkus an important mediator between the warring parties of the so-called Orange Revolution.
Despite the great popularity in surveys (about 65-75 percent ), he was controversial as president especially in domestic policy. Kwasniewski blocked, among other social reforms of the civil government of Jerzy Buzek, for example, an administrative reform, tax reform or a Reprivatisierungsgesetz. Kwasniewski was also accused that he would belittle corruption in Poland. After various scandals he was forced to lay off large parts of his closest collaborators.
Kwasniewski was named as one of the candidates to succeed Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as NATO Secretary General. After the elections of 2005, he abdicated on 23 December 2005, as the Constitution of Poland did not allow a third term.
Since 2007, Kwasniewski actively engaged as chairman of a new left party alliance between the SLD, the Unia Pracy, the SdPL (all Social Democrats ) and the Social-Liberal Democratic Party. Kwasniewski itself did not occur as the leading candidate of the group under the name of LiD - Left and Democrats on. His appearances as a former President should strengthen the opposition in the election campaign against the ruling party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski and achieve a greater presence of left parties in the Sejm, who was re- elected on 21 October 2007. An important performance Kwasniewski was a televised debate with Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński on October 1, 2007.
Since June 2012 Kwasniewski observed on behalf of the European Parliament the criminal trial of Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine.
Since 2013 he supported together with MEP Marek Siwiec and the Janusz Palikot Sejmabgeordneten the Europa Plus initiative.
He is married to Jolanta Kwaśniewska, which enjoyed great popularity as First Lady of Poland.