Posted on 03/29/2004 12:07:05 PM PST by freedom44
WARSAW : Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski named Marek Belka, a former finance minister and the country's top official in Iraq, as his preferred choice to succeed the embattled Leszek Miller as prime minister.
The deeply unpopular Miller announced he would be stepping down on May 2, the day after Poland joins the European Union, triggering a political crisis and jitters in financial markets.
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But in a sign of the difficulties his choice might face being accepted in the parliament, Kwasniewski said consultations with political parties would continue on Tuesday.
"Today Marek Belka is my candidate, but discussions continue," Kwasniewski said.
Belka, 52, who is currently responsible for economic policy in Iraq, earlier told the PAP news agency he was Kwasnieski's candidate and that if officially chosen he planned to return to Poland on Wednesday for talks on his future team.
"I am it, there is nothing to hide," he said, when asked from Kuwait whether he was Kwasniewski's man.
The vacancy as head of government emerged on Friday after Miller announced he would resign after slumping to all-time lows in opinion polls and members of his Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party declared they were breaking away to form a new party.
Polish leaders from the embattled ruling left-wing party are rushing to form a new government, in order to head off early elections as the country prepares to become the biggest country to join the EU on May 1.
However, the presidential candidate has to be approved by parliament before taking office, and some opposition parties, who, sniffing victory would prefer to go through early elections, on Monday indicated they would not back Belka.
The head of the SLD, Krzysztof Janik, backed the nomination, saying: "He is a very good candidate as far as I am concerned and I will consult with my party."
Marek Pol, head of the junior coalition partner Union of Labour also said he could accept the nomination, but only as long as he presents "a clear line" on withdrawing Polish troops from Iraq and adds more social measures to a current austerity plan under debate.
Janusz Wojciechowski, the head of the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), which was also part of the ruling coalition before being kicked out, said it could not accept Belka.
"From my point of view PSL support for this candidate is impossible," he said.
Pending a nomination, Miller's government will carry on working.
Suggestions that Belka, Kwasniewski's ex-economic aide, had been chosen, were earlier welcomed by the financial markets in Warsaw, which have been on edge amid the political uncertainty.
"Mr Belka is considered an expert, a person who understands well the current economic situation and would act as a guarantor of stable fiscal policy," Katarzyna Zajdel-Kurowska, chief analyst at Bank Handlowy in Warsaw, was quoted by the PAP news agency as saying.
According to a new poll published on Monday in the daily Gazeta Wyborzca by the TNS OBOP polling institute, the Civic Platform, the main liberal opposition party, still heads the polls with 28 percent of voting intentions.
The increasingly popular peasants' party Samoobrona, led by populist Andrzej Lepper, is on its heels with 21 percent.
Lepper has waged a campaign against corruption and a wave of EU-imposed industrial reforms and lay-offs.
He is followed by the right-wing Law and Justice party with 11 percent of voting intentions.
Polish Social Democracy, the newly-formed breakaway party which has split the left wing in two, had the support of 11 percent of voters, while the Catholic nationalist right wing League of Polish Families (LPR) had nine percent.
The SLD gets just seven percent of voter intentions and the Polish Peasants Party (PSL) five percent.
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