Poland’s prime minister: Constitutional concerns

Marek Belka's planned departure will complicate the next election

THE turbulence of Polish party politics will confront the rigidities of the Polish constitution if the prime minister, Marek Belka, goes ahead with his planned resignation on May 5th. President Aleksander Kwasniewski wants Mr Belka to stay on at least until May 17th, when Poland hosts a Council of Europe summit. But after that, the course of government is anyone's guess.

On May 5th the parliament will also debate its own early dissolution. Any vote requires a two-thirds majority, so it may well fail. The Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), Mr Belka's present party, wants to delay elections until parliament's term formally ends in September. Unless parliament either dissolves itself or supports another prime minister, Mr Belka could be left running the government for two or three months after his resignation - when it will be almost time for elections anyway. One possible way of avoiding this drawn-out torture was being touted this week: Mr Belka might seek a vote of confidence in the expectation of losing it.

Mr Belka took over the government, as Mr Kwasniewski's nominee, when the SLD's veteran leader, Leszek Miller, resigned the day after Poland joined the European Union last May. Mr Belka said then that he would serve for one year only, and he seems keen to stick to that pledge. He can ignore pressure from the SLD not to resign, because he has now declared his intention to join a brand new party, the Democratic Party. Its driving force is Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, a Solidarity veteran; its stars include a former Solidarity prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and Mr Belka's deputy prime minister, Jerzy Hausner, who will soon quit the government. It is now fishing for support from the moderate right and soft left alike.

Whatever the merits of the Democratic Party, its arrival means that the next election, whenever it comes, will be a more confused and less predictable affair. There is less chance now that Poland's two main right-wing parties, Civic Platform and Law and Justice, will emerge with a workable majority in the new parliament: the Democratic Party may drain away too many of their votes. That also means less chance of a strong new government ready to make the deep cuts in taxes and public spending needed to get Poland's economy back on course. It is true that there was a hole at the centre of Polish politics; but this may not have been the best time to fill it.

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