Janusz Palikot: Poland's political maverick

Janusz Palikot made his fortune as a political entrepreneur. Today he is struggling as an entrepreneurial politician. A self-made drinks millionaire who built the world's 10th-largest vodka producer in the 15 years after Poland emerged from under communist rule, Palikot dropped the alcohol a decade ago in a bid to become the country's leader.

In the years that have followed, Palikot has waved a dildo and a gun at a press conference, used a butchered pig's head as a prop during a television interview and threatened to smoke a joint in the country's parliament - much to the chagrin of Warsaw's political establishment.

At the last general election in 2011, his party won 10 per cent of the vote, making it the third-largest party in parliament. But, he admits, his attempt to seize the political initiative in a similar fashion to amassing market share as a liquor baron has not followed the same trajectory.

"Only today do I really understand politics," he says, sipping green tea in his bright, airy apartment. "I think that the idea that I understood it 10 years ago is wrong."

Palikot is a little under the weather - a side-effect of his campaigning for this month's presidential election. He admits he has no chance of unseating incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski, but the ballot is an important aperitif before the general election in October.

His Warsaw apartment is on a natty, well-heeled street fittingly equidistant from the parliament building and Plac Zbawiciela, a square so renowned for the liberal, left-leaning twentysomethings that flock to its bars and coffee shops that it has been nicknamed "Plac Hipstera", or Hipster Square.

But like the giant rainbow flower sculpture that arches over the centre of the square and has been burnt at least four times by conservative protestors angry at the gay rights message they say it conveys, Palikot finds himself wrestling with an electorate that appears unready for his countercultural ideas. He has campaigned against teaching Catholicism in state schools and champions gay rights. He has called for the relaxation of drug laws and abortion rules. He is the most vociferous candidate to openly support Poland joining the euro.

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"My mistake in politics was that I developed a position too quickly. I was from business; I did not calculate politically," he says. "[In business], the winner is the winner: you finish something. In politics you must be careful. You must wait your time. In politics, you must block others, and then do your thing."

Palikot entered business as a 20-year-old student in 1984, and four years later was a millionaire thanks to the success of his company, which sold wooden pallets for liquor bottles. But Poland's political enfant terrible did not study management. Instead, he chose philosophy and his living room is full of piles of books by Aristotle and Soren Kierkegaard, rather than works by Jack Welch or Warren Buffett. But he says his entrepreneurial background is a big asset to his radical agenda.

"People still see me as a man who knows business; this is good for me," he says. "What people think about me, feel about me, is that I am not in politics only to be in politics. If I have the power, I use it to change something.

"The spirit of politics and business is similar. You can be a creator in both," he adds.

After Poland became a democracy in 1989, he moved into the production of alcohol, and by 2005 he was running the largest flavoured vodka producer in the country, as well as the biggest wine importer. He also had 65 per cent of the domestic market for sparkling wine.

Having dipped his toes into small local issues and having supported the publishing of some political books, the entrepreneur was approached in 2004 by Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform party and soon to be prime minister, to join his party.

That convinced Palikot to sell his businesses and run for office. "I believed I was the only man that understood business in politics, and could change the structure of our administration," he recalls.

A successful stint as Civic Platform's pro-business face followed, and Palikot ran a commission set up by Tusk to streamline the country's bureaucracy.

But as Tusk began to shift his party to the left, and Palikot's antics brought infamy rather than popularity, the liberal firebrand was jettisoned from the ruling party.

<>Today, running his own caucus, he is toning down the controversy a little. The unruly mop of brown, curly hair that went with his unpredictable, zany character has been shorn off in favour of a clipped, smarter grey cut.

But he is still the only real alternative for young liberals to the centre-right parties that have dominated Poland's politics for the past decade.

"If have the opportunity to debate on TV directly with Mr Komorowski, then I am the winner. Without a doubt," he says.

Palikot, who has the support of between 2 and 4 per cent of voters for his presidential campaign, believes his party can gain 12 per cent of the vote in the parliamentary election, cementing its third position.

He says he has already suggested to Ewa Kopacz, prime minister and Civic Platform leader, that he could be prime minister if her party comes second and needs his support to form a majority.

Her response, he admits, "was very short". But, folding his arms, Palikot maintains: "I will be prime minister in the next five years, perhaps even this year. Why could I not be?"

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