Andrzej Lepper
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Andrzej Zbigniew Lepper (born June 13 1954) is a Polish politician, leader of Samoobrona political party and Member of Parliament.
Lepper was born is a village called Stowięcino in northern Poland. He is a farmer and is without higher education. During the period of economic transformation his farm fell into debt and he was on the verge of bankruptcy. He founded an organisation of farmers like him and he called it "Samoobrona" (Self defense). Using populist vocabulary, committing spectacular acts of civil disobedience and taking advantage of clear mistakes of his political opponents he managed to gain nationwide publicity and a strong following in the countryside. Quite skillfully, he created an image of himself as "the good one among crooks" who could not be corrupted and is courageous enough to tell the whole truth about the Polish corrupt political sphere.
In 1992 his organisation formed a new political party. As the party president he challenged Aleksander Kwasniewski in the run for Presidency in 1995 (1.3% votes) and 2000 (3.1% votes). In 2001 Lepper's Samoobrona managed to enter the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament (Sejm) and formed an important fraction of it. Lepper was elected from Koszalin constituency.
Samoobrona and Lepper play on disillusionment of millions of poor citizens and on the fear of EU accession. For some time he had been the Vice-Speaker of Sejm but after outrageous violations of political savoir-vivre he was dismissed.
See also:
External links
- Lepper's Homepage (http://www.lepper.com.pl)
- http://www.samoobrona.org.pl
- Information about Andrzej Lepper on the Sejm website (http://www.sejm.gov.pl/poslowie/posel4/207.htm) (in Polish)de:Andrzej Lepper