Free Republic

This Sunday's election result in the race for the Polish presidency will have a strong impact in Europe -- especially if it can help boost momentum for bureaucratic reform and free-market economics. After winning the first round of the presidential balloting, Donald Tusk, of the free-market Civic Platform party, lost in the runoff. His party came in close second in the parliamentary election with a 15 percent flat tax proposal as one of its main messages. But despite the loss, free-market supporters can take some comfort in his showing. Many of the voters who in the end chose Lech Kaczynski...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Center-right parties victorious in Poland's weekend election are expected to keep their distance from Russia and retain a pro-U.S. stance but talk tough about what they want from Washington in return. The conservative Law and Justice Party, which initial results showed in the lead Monday, and its expected coalition partner, the free market Civic Platform, support warm ties with the United States. Both parties have also indicated they might extend Poland's deeply unpopular military mission in Iraq past a Dec. 31 deadline, although they did not campaign on the issue. They stress that in return they...

In Poland, Kaczynski and Tusk Are Even (Angus Reid Global Scan) – Two presidential candidates are tied for first place in Poland, according to a poll by Ipsos. 24 per cent of respondents would vote for Warsaw mayor Lech Kaczynski of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), while 24 per cent would support Civic Platform (PO) leader Donald Tusk. Former prime minister and current Diet speaker Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) is third with 19 per cent, followed by Self-Defence of the Polish Republic (SRP) leader Andrzej Lepper with 12 per cent. Support is lower for Centre...

Flowers wreathed the gates of the Gdansk shipyard, where the trade union movement that helped overthrow communism in Poland was born 25 years ago. In Solidarity Square, named after that movement, patriotism bloomed, too, as crowds chanted "Polska! Polska!" at a ceremony last month celebrating Solidarity's founding. For Lech Kaczynski, 56, mayor of Warsaw and leader of the Law and Justice Party, it was an emotional moment. Lech and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, helped establish Solidarity, and returned to Gdansk for the commemorations. "I was thinking of all those years of underground struggle," Lech told Time last week, sipping a...

The political descendants of the Solidarity trade union, which set into motion the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War, are poised to return to power in Poland for the first time in a decade in the political wilderness. Parliamentary elections will be held Sunday, with a presidential vote to follow two weeks later. The parliamentary ballot is expected to mark the end of the Democratic Left Alliance's and close out the career of Kwasniewski. The left-wing leadership likely will be replaced by a pro-market government, as two conservative parties are far ahead of...