POLAND: Poland slid closer to elections yesterday after Prime Minister Marek Belka signalled he might quit the scandal-ridden ruling left and join a new pro-reform centrist party. Mr Belka, a liberal economist, will present his plans today but has said he believes elections will take place in June, months ahead of schedule.
New EU member Poland has been locked in a political stalemate for almost two years as the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) lost its once huge majority in parliament following a string of corruption scandals.
SLD leaders acknowledged that with their ability to replace Mr Belka with a new prime minister close to zero in the opposition-dominated parliament, snap polls could be a way out if Mr Belka jumped ship.
"In such a situation, which would threaten the stability of the country, different scenarios, including snap elections in May, are possible," SLD second-in-command Marek Dyduch said.
The party's leadership held a crisis meeting yesterday but analysts said the SLD was now more likely to accept that early polls were unavoidable.
"The chances that elections are held in June, not September, are quickly rising," sociologist Edward Wnuk-Lipinski said.
Although last year's EU entry gave a boost to the economy, now growing at about 5 per cent, the demoralised SLD has failed to curb unemployment and reform public finances to prepare Poland for euro zone membership later this decade.
The opposition has long called for early polls but the SLD has still been strong enough in parliament to block any motions to dissolve the lower house.
Sources say Mr Belka and his mentor, President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former SLD leader, have grown increasingly frustrated at the ex-communist party's inability to shake off its sleazy image and reunite the fragmented left.