Jan Olszewski

Prime Minister of Poland

Jan Ferdynand Olszewski 20 August 1930 Warsaw, Poland

7 February 2019(2019-02-07) (88) Warsaw, Poland

6 December 1991 – 5 June 1992

Polish lawyer and political figure Jan Ferdynand Olszewski (Polish:  ( listen ) ; 20 August 1930 – 7 February 2019) was a Polish conservative lawyer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Poland for five months between December 1991 and early June 1992 and later became a leading figure of the conservative Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland. During his premiership, Olszewski's cabinet worked under new international conditions. At the end of December 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved. This motivated the government to start integration with NATO and European Community. For the first time, in official documents, it was mentioned that membership in NATO is part of Polish defence strategy. Negotiations to withdraw Russian armies from Poland started at the end of October 1990, were accelerated. In March 1992, a period of confusion occurred when president Lech Wałęsa presented his conception of new economic and military alliance with former Warsaw Pact during his visit to Germany, which went against the euro Atlantic direction of the government. Olszewski’s government changed the concept of privatization of national corporations. Total stop of privatization led to open conflict with liberal groups in the parliament. On 22 May 1992, Olszewski opposed the signing of a clause in Polish-Russian Treaty of Friendly and Neighbourly Cooperation, which handed over former Russian military bases to international Polish-Russian corporations. Olszewski sent a telegram to Moscow to the president Lech Wałęsa informing of government opposition to the clause. Wałęsa, after a conversation with Boris Yeltsin changed the controversial clause. However, this did not stop further clashes with the president. Olszewski's cabinet did not hold a permanent parliamentary majority. Attempts to extend the coalition, first to Democratic Union, Liberal Democratic Congress and Polish Economic Programme, and then to Confederation of Independent Poland, were unsuccessful. On 24 May 1992, the council of the Democratic Union wrote a report calling the government to resign. On 26 May, Wałęsa sent a formal note to the Marshal of the Sejm, informing of withdrawal of support for the government. On 27 May, the four parties prepared for the vote of no confidence against the government. The following day, the Sejm passed a resolution obligating the Minister of Interior (at the time Antoni Macierewicz), to publish the list of communist secret police collaborators. On 29 May, representative of the Democratic Union, Jan Maria Rokita, presented a vote of no confidence request on the behalf of 65 members of the parliament of the 3 parties. On 2 June, the final day of coalition negotiations with the Confederation of Independent Poland, Macierewicz met with deputy Marshal of that party, informing him that its leader, Leszek Moczulski, was on the list of collaborators which will be presented to the Sejm the following day. The cabinet was recalled by the Sejm in voting after the midnight of 5 June 1992, few hours after publishing the list. Olszewski supported the decision of Macierewicz, proposing to establish an independent commission to verify the validity of the published documents. The Sejm did not debate this proposal. Wałęsa pressured on the Sejm to speed up the vote of no confidence, sending his own request. On 5 June 1992, 00:00 AM, after a vote of no confidence was approved, with 273 in favour and 119 against, Olszewski was forced to resign as Prime Minister and his cabinet was immediately replaced in an event known as the nightshift ("Nocna zmiana"). After Olszewski's dismissal, Wałęsa designated Waldemar Pawlak as the new Prime Minister. Olszewski's premiership was the second shortest in the history of the Third Republic.