TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081489/08148900.023

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 6.2 KB | 120 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 38

POLAND

To the Brink -- and Back Again


The Sejm barely agrees on a new Prime Minister as price hikes
threaten trouble


    If politicians had their own Academy Awards, the statuette
for cliff-hanger scenarios would certainly go to Poland. Last
week the Sejm, the governing lower house of Parliament, tackled
the task of electing a Prime Minister to head the new
government. President Wojciech Jaruzelski chose Interior
Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak for the post. But Kiszczak ran into
such fierce resistance from both the Solidarity opposition and
some legislators allied with the Communists that frantic
politicking continued right down to the wire. Communist leaders
pressured their rebellious allies within the United Peasant
Alliance, offering important positions and threatening to
retract privileges. The tactics paid off. When the vote was
counted Wednesday, Kiszczak emerged on top: 237 to 173, with ten
abstentions.

    Thus Poland once again strode to the brink of a political
abyss, then pulled back. Legislators opted to make the best of
the bargain struck at the round-table talks three months ago,
when Communist Party and Solidarity leaders agreed on the broad
outlines of a program for achieving political pluralism and a
more open economy. That meant, among other things, a
continuation of Communist Party rule. Acceptance of the scheme
has been grudging at best, and its future course is anything but
certain. The delicate political balance is threatened by
radicals within Solidarity who are itching to leave the
opposition benches and lay claim to the popular mandate the
trade union won in the June 4 legislative elections, when it
captured all 161 seats open to it in the Sejm and 99 out of the
100 Senate seats. The economic experiment also faces challenges.
Last week, as a monthlong wage-and-price freeze was lifted,
prices doubled and even trebled.

    Given the inherent frictions between the Communists and the
opposition, it is questionable whether any Communist candidate
for Prime Minister would have coasted to victory. Even so, some
Solidarity legislators found Kiszczak, 63, particularly tough
to take. During his eight-year tenure as Interior Minister,
Kiszczak controlled the police and paramilitary forces and was
responsible for hunting down and jailing Solidarity activists
during the martial-law crackdown that began in 1981. Many of
those activists are now seated in the Sejm.

    But Kiszczak's experience at quelling unrest may be a
primary reason why Jaruzelski pushed his candidacy. The
seriousness of Poland's economic crisis cannot be overstated:
labor unrest is growing, industrial production falling and
annual inflation galloping along at 150%. Perhaps most serious
of all, basic food staples are in short supply, a fact
underscored last week by President Bush's announcement that the
U.S. will provide Poland with a special $59 million food-aid
package. The urgency is not lost in Warsaw. "If the future
government does not find effective means to change this
situation," Kiszczak warned in his acceptance speech, "the
country will be threatened by a catastrophe, a catastrophe that
might lead to more than just a change of government."

    Tough policies more than tough talk will be needed to
overhaul the economy. A World Bank report shows that state
subsidies in Poland have grown alarmingly in recent years, and
now amount to 30% of budget expenditures. To continue the
supports is to risk bankruptcy. Yet removing them could create
just the sort of hardship that provoked violent unrest in the
past, leading to the downfall of governments in 1956, 1970 and
again in 1980, the year Solidarity was born.

    Last week's decision by the outgoing government to abandon
rationing and other controls immediately and permit market
forces to control prices had lightning impact: the cost of bread
soared 100%, milk nearly 300% and some cuts of meat more than
400%. But the move brought no quick improvement in food supplies
because prices and incomes had been frozen throughout July, and
Poles, aware that sharp increases loomed, had cleared store
shelves of most commodities.

    So far, grumbling has been kept to a minimum. The blow has
been softened by a rise of more than 100% in wages in the past
twelve months; with too much money chasing too few goods, large
amounts of cash are waiting to be soaked up. Moreover, workers
and pensioners will be cushioned from the impact of diminishing
subsidies by cost of living adjustments. Still, consumer
stoicism is likely to evaporate quickly if the new market policy
fails to improve supplies of foodstuffs and prices continue to
rise.

    And worse may be yet to come. To restructure the country's
antiquated industry, Poland must abandon many of the concepts
that have governed the economy for 40 years. Inefficient mines,
mills and factories will have to be closed. Unemployment will
have to be tolerated. So will growing differentials in wages and
living standards. Hardest of all for party members will be the
loss of cradle-to-grave security.

    To realize such sweeping changes, the Communist Party must
secure the cooperation not only of Solidarity but of its own
allies as well. However, as last week's threatened defection by
the Peasants demonstrated, there is growing impatience with the
compromise implicit in the round-table agreement. Observed the
Solidarity daily Gazeta Wyborcza in an editorial: "Society does
not understand why the new Cabinet, which would like to call
itself a government of national salvation, should be headed by
a representative of a party responsible for creating the
situation from which society must be saved."

    Events may yet force Solidarity off the back benches. Given
the vast voter disillusionment exposed by the June elections,
Kiszczak's government may be nothing more than an interim
administration. Though elections are four years off, it is
quite possible that barring a coup or some other
unconstitutional act, Poland could bury Communism within a year.
Then -- ready or not -- Solidarity may find itself at the helm,
hunting for a way out of Poland's economic morass.