Liberal maverick Palikot announces presidential bid

Leader of the liberal “Your Movement” party, Janusz Palikot announced on Sunday that he will be running for the presidential seat in next year’s elections in Poland.

“I have decided to become a presidential candidate because Poland needs an active presidency […] for positive change,” Palikot said.

“The president isn’t just a ‘keeper of the chandeliers’,” Palikot said outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw.

“The presidential, thanks to his legislative initaitives, right to veto, can work out solutions and compromises with the ruling coalition, which means that hundreds of thousands of people can be happy that their problems will be solved,” Palikot announced.

“That’s the kind of active presidency and positive change which I will be seeking.”

According to Palikot, issues which need to be tackled include the streamlining of business administration, which he believes has been left by the wayside by the Civic Platform – Polish Peasants Party coalition.

Running a company “is still torture, where apart from the actual business risk one has to take the resistance of the administration and reluctance of the surroundings, the civil servants”.

“This has go to change, this can change,” Palikot enthused, adding that “it is a completely different story in the majority of EU states”.

Janusz Palikot is the second politician to officially declare his candidacy for the Polish presidency. The move follows the opposition Law and Justice party, which put forward the candidacy of MEP Andrzej Duda for the presidency in November.