POLAND: A unpopular and unstable government is poised finally to fall on its sword. Derek Scally reports on a party heading for electoral oblivion.
Politics in Poland can often resemble a muddled soap opera to outsiders, with a rapid turnover of characters and reversals of fortune as dramatic as they are regular.
The latest twist follows the announcement yesterday from prime minister Marek Belka that he will ask for the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, to be dissolved on May 9th, with early elections probably five weeks later.
Mr Belka took office just 10 months ago in a caretaker capacity and heads a minority government led by the post-communist Democratic Left party (SLD).
However, he has given heavy hints that he could abandon the SLD, which is heading for election oblivion with just 7 per cent support, and join a fledgling political party.
The rise and fall of the SLD is quite a tale: the party took 41 per cent of the vote four years ago in a dramatic election night that saw the previous Solidarity-led coalition expelled from the Sejm, along with the centrist Freedom Union.
The night ended with SLD supporters carrying party leader and new prime minister Leszek Miller on their shoulders, singing: "May he live 100 years".
He lasted just three years, seeing Poland into the EU on May 1st last before resigning on May 2nd, a victim of unpopular reforms, high unemployment and a steady stream of scandals.
However, the nail in his political coffin was when MPs left the SLD to form a new left-wing party, Polish Social Democracy (SDPL), which continues to hold up well in the opinion polls with about 10 per cent support.
Mr Belka, a former finance minister and World Bank adviser, was drafted in as a caretaker leader but impressed at home and abroad with his quiet, no-nonsense style.
His government steered the country through its first months in the EU and took some important steps towards stabilising public finances. The Polish economy grew by 5.4 per cent last year, one of the best performances in the EU.
However, the government was dealt another blow with the departure last month of economics minister and deputy prime minister, Jerzy Hausner.
Mr Hausner, who drafted the country's austerity plan, said he was "tired of existing political formations" and founded a new centrist Democratic Party (PD) with members of the Freedom Union who were forced out of the Sejm in the 2001 election but performed well in the European elections.
With the SLD heading for the rocks, Mr Belka has suggested that he might jump ship and join Mr Hausner.
"What I like about the new political party is that it groups people with different backgrounds and different opinions," he said in Warsaw yesterday.
The new Democratic Party will shake up an election that, until now, looked like a shoo-in for the right-wing Civic Platform (PO) - itself an offshoot of the Freedom Union - and the even more right-wing Law and Order Party (PiS).
The election will have huge implications for the future of the EU constitution: the new Democratic Party is likely to encourage a Yes vote in the referendum, likely in September.
The PO has criticised the constitution but could accept it, but the PiS is against, as is the ultra-Catholic League of Polish Families.
That party could face competition of its own in the upcoming election. Radio Maryja, a radical Catholic radio station, is planning to launch its own religious party.
The controversial station, run by a priest, is never out of the headlines. Last week former president and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa hit out at the station's board, calling them a "bunch of psychos".