Marek Borowski

Marek Stefan Borowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˈmarɛk bɔˈrɔfskʲi]; born 4 January 1946 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish politician. He led the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) for a time and was Speaker of the Sejm (the lower, more powerful, house of Poland's parliament) from 2001 to 2004.

Biography

He was born to a Polish-Jewish family, as a son of Janina and Wiktor Borowski(born as Aron Berman).

He was Minister of Finance of Poland from 1993 to 1994. From 2004 to January 2009 he was the leader and chairman, of a new Polish left-wing party called Social Democracy of Poland (SdPl), formed from a break-away group of SLD.

Marek Borowski is an MP from Piła, but in the September 2005 parliamentary elections he contested a seat in Warsaw. Borowski was the Social Democratic presidential candidate in the 2005 Polish presidential elections. Just as his party received a massive defeat in the September 2005 Parliamentary elections, Borowski lost the presidential elections, receiving 10% of the vote and fourth place, despite Aleksander Kwaśniewski's support following the withdrawal of Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz.

His presidential slogan was "I keep my promises. That's the difference." He promised to modernize Warsaw and make it city of European level, lower the unemployment rate and tackle corruption. He stood against lustration, extending presidential powers and current abortion laws. Borowski proposed his opponent to release the files of Institute of National Remembrance about them and show their electoral programme.

He most recently ran (unsuccessfully) for the office of mayor of Warsaw in the 2010 local elections.