POLAND: Poland faces fresh political instability after the ruling conservatives signed a new coalition agreement with a left-wing populist party yesterday which falls short of a parliamentary majority.
After weeks of bitter negotiations and months of political chaos, the Law and Justice Party PiS convinced the Self Defence Party to join a new government yesterday afternoon.
But the small Peasants' Party (PSL) walked away from coalition talks at the last minute, leaving the new administration 13 seats short of a majority in the lower house of parliament, the Sejm.
Leaders of the new government said they were confident that the minority government would build up a majority over time. But in a snap poll yesterday only 29 per cent of Poles said they thought the new government would last.
"This agreement guarantees that all social groups will benefit," said the prime minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. "I'm convinced that this is the beginning and that, in the near future, we will create a stable majority."
PiS won last September's election but, after talks broke down with the liberal Civic Platform PO), Mr Marcinkiewicz took office with a minority government.
In the last months, his party held talks with nearly every political party in Poland, including Self Defence and the ultra-conservative League of Polish Families.
PiS then signed a "stability pact" with those two parties to guarantee parliamentary support, an agreement that lasted just five weeks.
The party then tried and failed to dissolve parliament and call early elections.
Peasant Party leader Waldemar Pawlak said he walked out of talks because he was unhappy with "many points" of the coalition agreement. "We are open for co-operation with PiS and will support good initiatives from them, but we're not joining a coalition with them," he said.
The agreement could spell the end of the ultra-conservative League of Polish Families. After watching its electorate drift away to PiS in recent months, seven MPs and seven senators from the upper house have now left the party to support the new government.
PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski expressed optimism yesterday that the rest of the party could still be enticed into the coalition, giving the new administration a parliamentary majority.
Self Defence leader Andzrej Lepper, now deputy prime minister, promised yesterday to "govern Poland well".
"Today is the time to take responsibility for Poland," said Mr Lepper. "I'm convinced that this will lead to a stable majority.
If we didn't sign this we would have had early elections a few days before the Pope's visit, which wouldn't be a good signal from Poland."