The Polish election. For a perkier Poland

A historic chance - if the politicians take it

AT ALMOST any time in its history, the result of Poland's parliamentary election on September 25th would have seemed unimaginably good. The sheer normality of another democratic change of power is to be welcomed in a country that had until recent memory endured mostly dictatorship, autocracy and foreign rule. The ex-communists of the Democratic Left Alliance, who for four years had mismanaged the economy, slowed down reform and spawned sleaze, have been routed, winning only 11%. Fringe-party demagogues got nowhere. The two victorious centre-right parties, the populist Law and Justice and the free-market Civic Platform, broadly agree on the need to cut taxes, tame bureaucracy and break decisively with the past. Poland, you might think, weightiest among the European Union's newish entrants, would be in chipper mood, ready for a reforming fresh start.

Yet many Poles are glum (see pages 24-26). Three-fifths didn't bother to vote at all - the worst turnout in the country's 15-year electoral history. Some cynicism is justified: most of the ten governments since the collapse of communism have promised clean, efficient government, yet delivered little. Why should another lot be any different? Meanwhile, rows that erupted in the final weeks of the campaign may weaken the new government. Civic Platform promised a 15% flat tax; Law and Justice derided that as a giveaway for the rich. It promised, expensively, to protect social welfare programmes.

Negotiation and compromise are not always Polish political virtues. But it is vital that politicians shed their reputation for self-indulgent squabbling. Neither party can have everything it wants. Civic Platform may have to accept that taxes will be lower, but not flat. Law and Justice should abandon populist talk of forcing the central bank to loosen monetary policy. Politicians in both parties need to remind themselves that there is much more that unites than divides them.

That is particularly true in the fight against corruption. Making good their promises to maintain high standards of cleanliness and openness would help restore sagging confidence in the political system. Views on just how to cut bureaucracy differ, yet in some areas it is obvious what needs to be done - cleaning up and depoliticising Poland's security apparatus, for example. The military intelligence agency is the country's last unreformed communist-era bureaucracy. Closing that would gladden Poland's NATO allies.

The trickiest problem, however, is how to deal with Russia. A joint approach to Russia was meant to be the centrepiece of the European Union's (supposedly) common foreign and security policy. Yet, in practice, disunity and self-interest rule. Some other European countries, chiefly Germany and France, are pursuing their own, Russia-friendly policies. The sharpest example of this is Germany's agreement to a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia. That would allow the Kremlin to turn off the tap to Poland at will, while maintaining full supplies to western Europe.

When Poles complain loudly about Russia's heavy-handedness, as they have lately, they make it easy for Russia to portray them as paranoid Russophobes. Yet if they do not complain, nothing changes. The hard task for the new government will be to avoid the shrillness, talking politely in public, while winning allies among its European partners in private.

All good reasons for the two winning parties to sink their differences speedily. There's work to be done.