WARSAW - EIGHT years after leading eastern Europe's anti communist revolutions, Poles yesterday voted on a new democratic constitution designed to enshrine the gains of 1989.
Exit polls published by Polish television said 56.8 per cent of voters approved the constitution and 43.2 percent rejected it. Turnout was 39.8 per cent. PBS pollsters had questioned 30,000 people leaving polling stations in 360 constituencies.
The Catholic Church had campaigned against an "atheist" constitution which fails to outlaw abortion. The heirs to the rebel Solidarity tradition were also opposed to it.
The right and many of the anticommunist heroes of the revolution find it hard to accept that the new democratic constitution has been written by a parliament and government dominated by former communists and under President Aleksandr Kwasniecki, also a former communist.
The new constitution aims to resolve the confusion which has persisted since 1989 over the division of powers between president, government and parliament. It strips the president of many of the powers which Mr Lech Walesa, the expresident, managed to amass.
The failure to settle the constitutional dilemma has bedevilled Polish politics since 1989, meaning that the country's system has remained based on the Stalinist constitution of 1952, albeit amended in 1992.
The scant mention of God in the preamble had initially also brought Solidarity and the church out against the text, leading to a compromise where God was mentioned in the text, along with an ambiguous "life is protected by law", wording that could be interpreted by both sides of the country's abortion debate.
Homosexual marriages were also ruled out, the church obtaining a section which defines marriage as a relationship between a man and woman.
But even with the concessions, the church had said the constitution still raised "serious moral reservations," and advised followers to decide on it according to their consciences.
The government called the referendum before Polish born Pope John Paul's scheduled visit next week.