Waldemar Pawlak

He is also a long-time commander of the Polish Volunteer fire department, holding the rank of Brigadier General. Since 2015 Pawlak is workstream leader for the AMU (Agency for the Modernisation of Ukraine), where he contributes his expertise in economy.

On 21 April 2010, PSL announced that Pawlak would be the party's official candidate for the 2010 presidential election. He received only 1.75% of the vote and didn't get into the second round.

In the liberal Civic Platform (PO)-PSL government, formed after the 2007 parliamentary election, Pawlak became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy under Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Pawlak's comeback began in 2005 when he became PSL leader again.

After the SLD won decisively in the 2001 parliamentary election Kalinowski became deputy of the new Prime Minister Leszek Miller when the PSL joined the coalition. Pawlak did not play a major role during this period.

After losing the political battle with Kwaśniewski and, after that, the presidential election, there was a movement to replace Pawlak with Jarosław Kalinowski as party leader in 1997.

PSL suffered a great political disaster during the 1997 parliamentary elections and became the smallest party in the Sejm (from 132 seats in 1993 to just 27).

In 1995, Pawlak offered three options to Kwaśniewski. First, he would remain Prime Minister but with Kwaśniewski as Deputy and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Second, the Democratic Left Alliance would form a government with Kwaśniewski as Prime Minister. Third, Oleksy would become Prime Minister under the present coalition. Pawlak reportedly thought that Kwaśniewski would not risk a minority Democratic Left Alliance government without the support of the majority of the elevation of his main partisan opponent, Oleksy, to Prime Minister and therefore rather be the deputy of Pawlak. However, Kwaśniewski surprised many by choosing the third option.

Despite good public approval ratings Pawlak failed in his bid for the Presidency in 1995, finishing a distant fifth (after Kwaśniewski, Wałęsa, Jacek Kuroń and Jan Olszewski) and winning only 770,417 votes (4.31%).

The Polish People's Party and the social democratic, post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) won the 1993 election in a landslide, holding a super-majority and the support of the socialist-agrarian government, with Pawlak as Prime Minister again.

On 5 June 1992, 00:00 AM, after a vote of no confidence was approved, with 273 in favour and 119 against, Jan 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, President Lech Wałęsa designated the little-known and inexperienced Pawlak as caretaker Prime Minister with the mission, to form a new coalition government with agrarians, Christian democrats and liberals. Pawlak's potential partners, the Democratic Union and the Confederation of Independent Poland were not ready to agree on a compromise programme. The fact was that Pawlak and nobody else was called upon to form a new government was nevertheless a remarkable phenomenon. According to Aleksander Kwaśniewski, it was a 'historical step' towards a 'normalization' of Polish political and party life.

After graduation (1984) he became a computer teacher in Kamionka (near Pacyna). His political career began in 1985, when he joined the United People's Party. After 1990, like many UPP members, he joined the UPP's successor, the Polish People's Party. He was elected from UPP office to the Contract Sejm (1989) and has remained a member of Sejm since then. He became leader (Prezes) of the UPP in 1991.

gen. bryg.Waldemar Pawlak [valˈdɛmar ˈpavlak] ( listen ) (born 5 September 1959) is a Polish politician. He twice served as Prime Minister of Poland, briefly in 1992 and again from 1993 to 1995. From November 2007 to November 2012 he served as Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Economy. Pawlak is the only person who held the office of Prime Minister twice during the Third Republic (i.e. since 1989), and he remains Poland's youngest Prime Minister to date.

Pawlak was born in the village of Model, Masovian Voivodeship on 5 September 1959. He is a graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology. While he was a student and during martial law in 1981 he actively participated in strikes.