POLAND: A party whose slogan was "Nice or death" is now Poland's most popular, writes Derek Scally
The Polish President, Mr Aleksander Kwasniewski, begins difficult consultations this morning to find a new prime minister who can save the left-wing coalition government and steer Poland through its first months in the EU.
On Friday, the Prime Minister, Mr Leszek Miller, announced that he would resign on May 2nd, a day after Poland's EU accession, following the departure of 22 members of his ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) to form a new left-wing party.
Mr Kwasniewski has made clear that, despite the change of prime minister, Poland's EU accession is in no doubt.
Political observers add that any reversal of the progress made by Poland in the ongoing negotiations on new EU voting rules is unlikely.
But there is a risk that prolonged political wrangling will result in over 20 outstanding Bills required for EU accession not being passed by parliament as required before May 1st. Of the three front runners to succeed Mr Miller, the most likely candidate is the Foreign Minister, Mr Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, seen as a safe pair of hands and a good interim solution.
Other candidates include a former finance minister, Mr Marek Belka, dismissed by some as lacking experience and charisma, and the current Interior Minister, Mr Jozef Oleksy.
Mr Miller's resignation ends a difficult year: he was seriously injured in a helicopter crash last December and has spent the last year heading a minority administration. Twelve months ago he threw out his coalition partners, the Peasant Party (PSL), after a bitter disagreement on a €11 billion austerity plan to rescue public finances and prepare Poland for the euro.
The government managed to stay in power and even passed parts of the economic programme, called the Hausner Plan, but only with the support of independents. Now the SLD, tainted by a wave of corruption scandals and blamed by the public for an unemployment rate of 20 per cent, faces annihilation unless it can revive the coalition with the PSL.
But the PSL has made clear that its price to return to government is the abandonment of the Hausner Plan.
That would save the coalition but could spell disaster for the Polish economy and leave the government open to a beating from the financial markets and from Brussels.
Apart from the PSL, the highly unpopular SLD has no natural coalition partners. Neither is an alternative administration likely ahead of fresh elections: the centre-right Civic Platform, which devised the "Nice or Death" slogan, is Poland's most popular party with 28 per cent support, according to a poll in yesterday's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.
One-fifth of voters support the populist Self Defence party, while the law and order Justice Platform and the ultra-conservative League of Polish Families each have around 10 per cent. The new breakaway left-wing party, the SDPL, enjoys 11 per cent support, according to the poll, already four points ahead of the SLD.
Friday's walk-out of 22 MPs has severely weakened Mr Miller's party. If the new party gathers further support, it may even supplant the SLD to become the leading left-wing party in Polish politics.
Mr Miller's fall from grace has been nothing if spectacular. His dramatic electoral win in 2001 wiped out Solidarity as a political force but now Mr Miller will leave office in two months as the least popular prime minister since the advent of democracy.
"With EU accession, he was forced to put through a huge, unpopular series of reforms which he knew were only going to start paying off next year. Mr Miller was holding on and he didn't lose his nerve; his party did," said Mr Krzysztof Bobinski, a political commentator in Warsaw.
On the campaign trail three years ago, Mr Miller suggested that the then prime minister resign because he had such low public support. Mr Miller's quip at the time has now come back to haunt him: "It's not how you start, it's how you finish."