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Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, buoyed by its popular conservative platform and generous social spending, was widely expected to win Sunday’s election, which is regarded as one of the country’s most momentous since the fall of communism 30 years ago. More than 30 million voters were choosing lawmakers in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm, and in the 100-seat Senate. Law and Justice is the first party since the fall of communism to break with the austerity of previous governments, whose free-market policies took a moribund communist economy and transformed it into one of Europe's most dynamic.

Donald Tusk, the EU Council president and former prime minister of Poland, warned on Wednesday that Warsaw’s Law and Justice (PiS) government could push the country towards what is already being dubbed in Brussels as “Polexit.” In an interview in Polish weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, Tusk said that “for PiS the benefit of being in the EU boils down to the balance of payments, with a complete disregard for other benefits like the common market, legal order, guaranteed security, etc.” He added: “As long as we’re not a net contributor, the game is worth the candle for them. So I can...

WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) -- Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said he expected early elections in the autumn after his conservative party gave him the green light on Saturday to push for a snap vote to end weeks of political turmoil. Early elections have been on the cards in the biggest ex-communist EU member after bitter fighting within the coalition formed by the ruling Kaczynski twins, a far-right party and a rural leftist faction. "Elections could be on October 21," Kaczynski told a news conference. "In November at the latest."

PiS wants legal action against German daily 06.07.2006 The parliamentary caucus of the ruling Law and Justice party wants the justice ministry to establish whether the author of an article in a German daily satirizing President Lech Kaczynski and his brother insulted the Polish head of state. A letter to this effect was sent by the caucus head Przemyslaw Gosiewski to the national prosecutors’s office. The article, which compared the President to a potato, appeared in Die Tageszeitung at the end of June. Gosiewski argues that its language suggests the author intended to show unjustified contempt for Poland’s president. At...

WARSAW, Poland – Two parties – one pro-business, the other anti-corruption – were favored to oust Poland's ruling ex-communists in a general election Sunday that could determine how quickly the U.S. ally adopts the euro. Also, two brothers – identical twins – are competing on the political stage, one leading the Law and Justice party poised for a good result Sunday, the other a leading candidate in presidential elections Oct. 9. When Poland entered the European Union last year as the bloc's largest country, it agreed eventually to replace the zloty with the EU common currency. To do that, it...

Conservatives play welfare card in Polish election 2005-09-19 18:04 By Tomasz Janowski WARSAW, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Poland's conservatives, buoyed by increased support in opinion polls ahead of general elections on Sept. 25, accused the frontrunning centre-right Civic Platform party on Monday of caring only for the rich. The Law and Justice (PiS) party and the Civic Platform (PO), both rooted in the Solidarity movement, were heading for a landslide win over ruling leftists whose four years in power were marred by corruption scandals. Opinion polls show the left will struggle to pass the 5 percent threshold needed to enter...

An alert this week from backers of Judge John Roberts cautions not to take seriously Democratic complaints that they cannot stop his confirmation. A three-page memo sent to thousands of conservatives across the country warns that the assault on President Bush's first Supreme Court nominee is yet to come. A major reason cited for this belief is the man back at Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's side on the Senate Judiciary Committee: James Flug. ''It is hard to fathom Mr. Flug coming back to Capitol Hill after 30 years of private practice for anything other than a bitterly tough confirmation fight,''...

Two rightist groupings lead popularity polls 11.05.2005 The rightists Law and Justice and the centrist Civic Platform are in the lead of a recent popularity poll conducted by the Rzeczpospolita daily. The poll shows that had general elections been held last weekend both parties would have gained 22% of votes and a total of 246 seats in the Lower House. A possible coalition of the Law and Justice and the Civic Platform could be strengthened by the participation the League of Polish Families which could give the rightists block 307 seats in parliament. According to Rzeczpospolita the strong position of...

Unofficial translation from Russian Russian MFA Information and Press Department Commentary Regarding the Anti-Russian Agitation of the "Law and Justice" Political Party in Poland 1043-12-05-2005 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has taken notice of the pre-election political advertisement of the Law and Justice Party that was shown on May 5 on TVP1, a state-owned national television channel. As a rule, Moscow does not comment upon cinema products of this kind. What perturbs us, though, is that it is wholly aimed at undermining Russian-Polish relations and fomenting a negative attitude towards Russia and the peoples living in it. We...

The party now favored to win parliamentary elections wants to make Poland a "cheap state," and has outlined an ambitious economic plan that it believes could pull GDP growth up to seven percent per year. Law and Justice (PiS), the current leader in both the parliamentary and presidential polls, has outlined its economic plan which, if realized, could save the Treasury billions, eliminate state involvement in over a thousand companies, and make setting up a business in Poland possible in just three days. Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, PiS' economic point-man and current leader of the Parliamentary Treasury Commission, told the Polish-Swiss Chamber...