SLD win election but short of overall majority

Poland's reformed communists, the Democratic Left Union (SLD), may fall short of an absolute parliamentary majority, according to the first official results released yesterday after Sunday's general election.

The figures suggest the party took just over 41 per cent of the vote, down from the 43 per cent predicted in exit polls, which could leave it up to 14 seats short of an overall majority in the 460-seat lower house, the Sejm.

"Talks should begin to create a coalition," said Mr Leszek Miller, the SLD leader, in a radio interview yesterday. Before the election he said he would be unhappy about becoming prime minister in a coalition government. Though he seemed to have softened to the idea yesterday, he still warned that the possible search for a coalition partner would lead to "difficult discussions and wasted time."

"On the surface, Mr Miller has won a stunning victory, but in practical political terms the situation for him is very, very difficult," a political analyst, Mr Marek Matraszek, said yesterday. I think that last night's euphoria has given way to the realisation that this victory may backfire," he added.

Any possible coalition talks could prove difficult. The second largest party in the new parliament, the centrist Civic Union, has already ruled out joining a coalition. The remaining parties are a combination of EU-sceptic, highly conservative or anti-SLD - some all three - and unsuitable matches for the pro-Europe, social democratic SLD. Another option mooted yesterday was the prospect of a minority SLD government. The politically diverse opposition is unlikely to be able to agree on anything.

Final election results are not expected before tomorrow, but even official results are unlikely to alter the fate of the Soldiarity government.

They were banished to political oblivion by angry Polish voters after a term of office where any political successes were overshadowed by botched reforms, in-fighting and high-profile defections. Rising unemployment, now close to 17 per cent, spiralling national debt and slowing growth sealed the fate of the Solidarity-AWS movement, credited with bringing down the communist regime in 1989.

"This is a heavy blow for us. We took many political risks and that cost us," said the outgoing prime minister, Mr Jerzy Buzek.

"We lost because of the high costs of internal disputes. It is a kind of sickness which has eaten away at the Polish right," he added. The Freedom Union, a former coalition partner of the AWS, also failed to make it into parliament.

The political annihilation of the outgoing government was just one sign of voter disillusionment in Poland. As little as 39 per cent of the 29 million electorate is believed to have voted in the country's fifth general election since 1989. Nearly one-fifth of those who did turn out voted for Eurosceptic parties, such as the extremist farmers' party Self-Defence and the Catholic ultra-nationalist Polish Family League.

The Polish president and founding member of the SLD, Mr Aleksander Kwasniewski, said Sunday's poll was an expression of frustration on the part of voters.

The SLD is determined to keep Poland in the first wave of EU enlargement. "I don't think yesterday's result, even the success of anti-EU parties, poses any threat to Poland's EU accession," said Mr Jaroslaw Pietras, Under-Secretary of State in the Committee of European Integration.

Mr Miller knows it is economics and not politics that poses the biggest threat to Poland's EU accession hopes. To that end, he has vowed to impose strict austerity measures after taking office to rein in the country's budget deficit, which threatens to top $10 billion, or 10 per cent of GDP this year.

He has pledged to keep Poland an active member of NATO and to support any military action in response to the terrorist attacks in the US two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Poland's former communist ruler, Gen Wojciech Jaruzelski, went on trial in Warsaw yesterday, charged with ordering police to fire on striking workers in 1970.

The incident left 44 dead and hundreds wounded, and Gen Jaruzelski, defence minister at the time, faces a maximum 25-year sentence if found guilty.

The trial began last May but was postponed because of procedural disputes.