POLAND: Polish parliament votes against an opposition motion to dissolve parliament and hold early elections.

Deep scepticism greeted the revival of Poland's three-party ruling coalition on Tuesday (October 17), with critics questioning whether the remarriage of convenience could last long enough to deliver badly needed economic reforms. The dominant conservative Law and Justice party said it now had a solid majority in parliament after a late Monday (October 16) deal that secured the return to government of leftist Andrzej Lepper and his Self-Defence party. Lepper's return is an embarrassment for Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who just four weeks ago called the former farmer "a rabble-rouser" and expelled him from government. But the conservatives said it was a price worth paying. The ruling parties defeated the motion by a safe margin and later, in a sign of renewed unity, voted to send the long-disputed 2007 budget draft for further work in parliament. The three parties -- the third is the right-wing nationalist League of Polish Families -- have half the seats in the 460-member lower house of parliament and can rely on votes of another group with 15 deputies. Lepper, who provoked the coalition crisis with demands for more social spending, said he had no plans to raise the budget deficit or overall expenditure. The conservatives, led by identical twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, won last year's general and presidential elections promising a "moral revolution" and the removal of all traces of the communist era from state bodies. But their alliance was marred by backbiting and policy drift and analysts said more of the same was in store. The opposition said the coalition deal heralded more infighting and instability and cited opinion polls suggesting most Poles wanted new elections. Economists and international financial institutions agree Poland must reform its creaking social security and reduce bloated public finances to make the economy fit for the euro currency and reap full benefits of European Union membership. But even modest attempts at budget and tax reform have been put on ice amid the political turmoil. Financial markets reacted mutedly to the coalition deal, relieved that early polls and more near-term political volatility had been averted but worried about the longer term

ITN Source | October 19, 2006

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