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2005-09-24 Europe
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Polish right heads for election landslide
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Poland is set to take to take a sharp swing to the right in a general election tomorrow that may finish off the post-communist left as a political force. In their first election since joining the EU last year, the Poles are certain to ditch the governing and sleaze-ridden Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party of former communists and elect two rival rightwing parties which are expected to form an unstable coalition.
The Polish right is poised for a landslide that could command a two-thirds parliamentary majority and empower it to rewrite the country's constitution. "It looks like a landslide for both [rightist] parties," said Krzysztof Bobinski, head of a pro-European Warsaw thinktank. "The SLD could be left as a historic rump, finally! meaning the end of communism in Poland."
A presidential election in a fortnight is tipped to complete the right-wing rout, with Donald Tusk, the leader of the Thatcherite Civic Platform party, replacing the former communist, Alexander Kwasniewski, head of state for the past decade. The Civic Platform is running equal in opinion polls with the conservative Law and Justice Party led by twin brothers, Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski. The brothers hope to become both prime minister and president, Jaroslaw as head of the government while Lech, currently the mayor of Warsaw, wins the presidency. "Both of them are incorruptible, clean and principled in various ways," said Marek Matraszek, a political commentator. "But they believe in socialist economic policies."
Analysts expect the twins to fail, but they are in second place in both the parliament and presidential races. The Polish electorate is volatile and opinion polls are unstable. Mr Tusk, the presidential frontrunner, has gone from 7% to 40% in a month.
In a country with 18% official unemployment, but where barely half the workforce has a job, disaffection with the political class is acute.
The left's main presidential candidate, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, former prime minister, has withdrawn and the SLD might not even gain the 5% needed to qualify for parliament after taking more than 40% at the last election.
The Kaczynskis, said Mr Bobinski, were better placed to pick up the leftwing vote as they are culturally conservative with welfarist social and economic policies. Civic Platform members are free-market liberals, pushing for a 15% flat tax, private health care, and more privatisation. Both parties are running at around 30% per cent and have pledged to form a coalition. But they will find it difficult to agree on a common programme.
Jan Rokita, the Civic Platform's prime ministerial candidate, told the Associated Press: "We are facing a choice of whether to follow the path between the German-French model of social stagnation or the Spanish-British-Irish model of liberalising the economy and society." 
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Posted by Steve White 2005-09-24 00:51||
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Posted by Rafael 2005-09-24 01:38||
2005-09-24 01:38||
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Posted by Tony (UK) 2005-09-24 06:03||
2005-09-24 06:03||
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