Stanisław Tymiński

Stanisław "Stan" Tymiński (IPA2|sta'ɲiswaf ('stan) tɨ'mʲiɲskʲi, born January 27 1948 in Pruszków) is a Canadian businessman of Polish origin, dealing in electronics and computers, and a sometime-politician in both Poland and Canada. Despite being completely unknown in his native Poland until shortly before the 1990 presidential election, and making bold political statements, he surprisingly emerged from the first ballot as the second strongest candidate, defeating liberal prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and forcing Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa to stand a second ballot. After Wałęsa defeated him by a wide margin, Tymiński was a leader of Party X in Poland (1990–1995) and finally returned to Canada to resume his business activities. In 2005, he surprisingly announced he would stand in that year's presidential election.

1990 campaign

In 1990/1991, Tymiński led the Libertarian Party of Canada, a minor party which never received more than 0.25% of the vote.

At the same time, however, he started a spectacular but short-lived political career in his native Poland, where democracy had just been reestablished.

In the first free presidential elections on November 25, 1990, the two most promising candidates were Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Wałęsa, the electrician, union leader and people's tribune, had the image of an emotional, shirtsleeves populist, while lawyer and former Solidarity legal advisor Mazowiecki appeared as a more respectable and intellectual, but also more formal compromiser.

Tymiński, initially completely unknown in Poland, ran as a maverick candidate. Against all expectations he overtook Mazowiecki (18.1%) with 23.1% of the vote and made it to a sensational second place behind national hero Wałęsa with 39.96%. As no candidate had achieved the absolute majority, a second ballot was required and held on December 9, 1990. In the second round, Tymiński lost out to Wałęsa with just 25.75% of the total vote. The turnout in both ballots was 60.6% and 53.4, respectively.

In spite of his ultimate defeat, the fact remains that Tymiński had not only humiliatingly defeated Mazowiecki, one of the best-known and most respected figures in Polish politics, but also forced Wałęsa, who at that time many considered a national hero, to stand a second ballot.

The exact reasons for Tymiński's unexpected success remain unclear: It seems that his vague promise to create wealth for everyone quickly, supported by his image as a patriotic Pole who had "made it" abroad, was well received at a time when radical political changes were taking place, but the overall economic situation was getting worse. Also, people were increasingly disappointed with the trench warfare that had broken out within the former anti-communist opposition, so that the somewhat mysterious but honest and patriotic stranger "from straight out of nowhere" apparently had a considerable appeal.

Another potential factor was that Tymiński applied methods of political marketing which were unknown in Poland at that time. A key element of his campaign was a black briefcase he was rarely seen without - allegedly containing "secret documents" that were going to destroy his rivals' careers and that he would present when the time was due. Although the elections went by without the briefcase ever being opened, its presence secured constant attention.

Tymiński's adversaries took to a similar strategy; the renowned daily "Gazeta Wyborcza", which supported Mazowiecki, reported that Tymiński had had contact with the secret police apparatus himself, a story that was not withdrawn until after the elections.

Partia X

Enthused with his sudden success, Tymiński, who had run as a nonpartisan candidate, decided to found a party of his own, which he called "Partia X", with a nationalist political profile as diffuse as its name. However, Tymiński's charisma as a self-styled political deus ex machina wore off too quickly to translate into any long-term success; in the 1991 general elections, his "X-Party" achieved just three seats in the Sejm.

Critics of the populist "peasant leader" Andrzej Lepper often point to parallels between him and Tymiński. Lepper was groomed by the "establishment" to replace Tyminski in politicsFact|date=April 2008.

2005 campaign

On March 24, 2005, in an interview for a South American Polish organization, Tymiński surprisingly announced his readiness to run in the upcoming presidential election [http://www.usopal.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=77&Itemid=1] ; an announcement he had previously made in more vague terms on his own homepage [http://www.rzeczpospolita.com/stanpdf/election.pdf] . (See reports by Gazeta Wyborcza [http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/kraj/1,34317,2615927.html] and [http://pl.wikinews.org/ Polish WikiNews] [http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Tymi%C5%84ski_ponownie_wystartuje_w_wyborach] ).

On 3 June, Tymiński returned to Poland and officially declared his candidacy on behalf of a splinter party named the "All-Polish Citizens Coalition" (Ogólnopolska Koalicja Obywatelska). The party, whose apronym "OKO" translates as "eye", was founded by Wojciech Kornowski, a businessman who set up a network of eye surgery clinics in Poland. Kornowski, a former chairman of the Polish Employers Association ("Konfederacja Pracodawców Polskich"), has been trying to enter Polish politics for more than two decades by establishing contacts with completely different political milieus ranging from the communist PZPR in the 1980s to Andrzej Lepper's Samoobrona party. In 2004 his new outfit OKO received 0.6% of the Polish vote in the European parliament election. Refusing to make palpable political statements, Tymiński and Kornowski converge in their vague "pro-business" and "anti-establishment" message. [http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/kraj/1,34317,2752754.html] [http://serwisy.gazeta.pl/kraj/1,34317,2745158.html] Although Tymiński did not stand a chance to repeat his 1990 feat, his campaign attracted some media attention.

In late July Tymiński was the first presidential candidate to successfully collect all 100,000 signatures making him an official candidate.

During the first round of the 2005 Polish presidential election, held on October 9 Tymiński received 23,545 votes which were the equivalent of 0.2% of all valid votes.

Trivia

Less well known is that Tymiński was involved in developing the internet industry in Poland: In 1994, he was the first to offer internet access "for everyone", included in Poland's first commercial Bulletin board system "Maloka" (see ). However, when the national telephone company TPSA offered free internet dial up service, in 1996 Maloka closed down.

Today Tymiński writes columns for various minor Polish-language periodicals in Canada and the United States.

External links

* [http://www.rzeczpospolita.com "No censorship" - Tymiński's home page with articles in PDF format in Polish and English]