Szymon Hałownia, marszałek Sejmpotwierdzony w długim poście opublikowanym w mediach społecznościowych, że jego kariera polityczna dobiega końca.
Dziś rano pojawiły się doniesienia medialne sugerujące, że Sejm Marshal może planować zupełnie nowy kierunek jego kariery. Według portalu Onet Szymon Hałownia od kilku miesięcy szuka stanowiska Wysokiego Komisarza ONZ ds. Uchodźców w Genewie.
Hałownia potwierdza raporty!
Niedługo potem Szymon Hałownia opublikował długie oświadczenie na Facebooku, zasadniczo potwierdzając ustalenia medialne. Oto jego treść:
A Letter to Everyone Who Has Walked the Path of the Polska 2050 Party With Us for the Past Six Years.
Yes, it will be long, but that way you can be sure it’s really me. Image removed.
My dear friends!
As you know - on Saturday I informed our party’s National Council that I will not be running for the chairmanship of the Polska 2050 Party in the January elections. This is the stage, the moment, to pass the baton in the relay.
I have founded several organizations in my life. They would not exist had I not founded them, but they would not survive a day without the wonderful people who have built them with me. I have told you thousands of times: the most important task of a leader is not to look for a substitute, but for a successor. To look for people wiser, stronger, more creative than oneself - not to crush them as competition, but to lift them up, to give them a chance to show their best.
That is why our party has always had so many voices. That is why - hearing our heated internal debates - for five years “well-meaning” souls have predicted our split and collapse. And that is also why today, at the best political moment, two years before elections, I have the courage to say: the “founder stage” in the Polska 2050 Party is over. It’s time for new leadership. New visions. New strengths.
I did my job as best I could. I gave the Polska 2050 Party everything I had: security, health, time with my family, my entire life so far. Six years ago we didn’t exist, today we do. And because we exist - Poland is a different Poland. When the dust of battle settles, you will see this clearly: without our 2020 presidential campaign, there would be no Polska 2050 Party. Without the Polska 2050 Party there would be no Third Way. Without the Third Way there would be no victory in 2023, no current government, no current Sejm. I led you to victory in 2023; someone else will lead you to victory in 2027. Because 2023 is already past. In these two years the world has changed by decades. In another two - we will again be decades ahead. Repeating old incantations: “anything but PiS,” “anything but Civic Platform,” will no longer suffice. It’s time to add new sensitivities, new perspectives, new resources, so that we can convince more boldly - and above all more effectively - that there is life, there is hope, beyond polarization. That there are things we simply have to get done for our children together, instead of wasting energy on pointless domestic wars over what divided us fatally twenty years ago.
I will stay with you as long as you need me. From the second row I will support, help. Perhaps I will inspire? These six years in politics have taught me more about the world and people than the previous four decades of my life. I made mistakes. I sincerely apologize for them. Some things worked out - always with the team, whether parliamentary, party, or coalition - and I am proud of that. And I am grateful. Especially for our wonderful MPs, senators, councilors, Polska 2050 Party activists. And for the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, today unrecognizable. Open to people, increasingly modern, with strong relations worldwide.
In the past few months I have paid a high personal price. But in my assessment nothing has changed. I still believe it was right to guide Poland safely through the risk of a dramatic, potentially catastrophic constitutional crisis. Nor have I changed, nor will I. Traveling during the campaign to the smallest Polish towns and villages I heard: “Why are you with Tusk?!” Coming back to Warsaw, I immediately got: “Why are you talking to Kaczyński?!”
Well, I will still talk to Donald Tusk. And - if needed - to Jarosław Kaczyński. I will not join one of the politically and media-driven tribes sick with hatred. Kill each other if you like, spit venom, waste time - without me. There may be two camps, but Poland is still one. The Prime Minister is right in saying: don’t look for an enemy in the West today. I add: don’t look for a war at home today. Don’t we have enough of the one already touching - and at times crossing - our Polish borders?
I know some will again fall into a frenzy. I understand, but please also understand me: I will not be different. I am proud, not embarrassed, that I have good - even cordial - relations with both the Polish Prime Minister and the Polish President. We disagree with both on many issues, we argue, but we have - and often - conversations. About things, not emotions. About matters important to people. With one ten-million-strong Poland, with the other ten-million-strong Poland. And with the third (the same size) that understands neither. This is not naivety. This is normality. I cannot do many things, but I can talk, and I cannot hate. Today for many on the so-called “our” side this is a flaw. I will not confess something I do not consider a sin.
These six years have also taught me that you cannot simply jump over your own DNA. Nor should you. My job for years has been, and still is, to influence people so that they choose other perspectives, dare to desire and act differently. I do not want “power” for myself. That is why I am not joining the government. If MPs so decide (and as I have seen, that horse sometimes rides very colorfully), I will try to be useful in the Sejm as its Deputy Marshal (by the way - I want to thank ALL MPs: for every kind word, smile, for the wonderful atmosphere of our conversations, for the joy our meetings in “the company” give me). I will do what I do best, showing people they matter, that it is possible with respect but also with a smile, that there is room for all of us here, that - especially today - the world needs not more enemies, but more friends.
I will support my colleagues from the party. Visit you in the regions. Help manage the field where you will win your matches. Also keeping watch over the rules of the game. Because only this way can we achieve victory that brings satisfaction. If someone in politics dreams of annihilating opponents - sorry, I won’t help. I can’t.
With what I can do, I want to be useful somehow, both to Poland and the world. The day before yesterday I informed our National Council that last Friday I submitted my application in the public recruitment announced by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for the position of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Never before has a Pole held such a position within the UN structures, and I know the field of humanitarian support better than politics, because I worked on it twice as long, developing my foundations around the world. These past two years have taught me how to build bonds between states. It hardly needs explaining how important it would be to add a Polish - and more broadly Eastern and Northern European - perspective to this enormous challenge. That is why I am so grateful to the President of the Republic of Poland, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs for their clear support and for, knowing how significant this is for Poland, becoming so deeply engaged in the matter in recent days, activating personal contacts and our entire diplomatic machinery.
Honestly: today the chances are not great. The UN is a complicated, unpredictable world. But a week ago, when we began this process, there were none at all. And I - I admit - after all the sewage I have gone through, am simply happy at the thought that I could once again be where I can focus on a language I know from my “previous” life, a language understood by every human being regardless of views, religion, language, or skin color: the language of bread, of bandage, of embrace, of hope. Please, cheer me on.
Regardless of what and where it will be - whether it will be work with UNHCR with refugees in Gaza, Greece, or Bangladesh, or work with our “Polska 2050” Association on the next food-sharing point in Praga or a project for seniors, I assure you that we will be in this together. It does not matter whether I will be Deputy Marshal of the Sejm, an “ordinary” MP, or “no one” politically. You can be sure that always - at your call - I will join in action and remain “your Szymon”: grateful for having met you, delighted by your determination and the goodness you have preserved in your hearts. You are the greatest success of my life (after Ula, Mania, and Ela, you must forgive me for that. Image removed).
You are my friends, my inspiration. Thank you with all my heart.
I am not saying goodbye to you, because I am not going anywhere.
See you on the trail, my dear friends!
