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- <text id=91TT2770>
- <title>
- Dec. 16, 1991: World Notes:Poland
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Dec. 16, 1991 The Smile of Freedom
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 53
- World Notes
- POLAND
- Reluctant Choice
- </hdr><body>
- <p> For almost six weeks after the parliamentary elections in
- October, President Lech Walesa looked for another way out. Then
- last week he grudgingly acquiesced to the will of the dominant
- center-right coalition in the lower house and named Jan
- Olszewski, 61, a lawyer with a long history of defending
- dissidents to Communist rule, to the post of Prime Minister.
- </p>
- <p> Walesa moved reluctantly because Olszewski favors
- softening the radical anti-inflation policies that have been
- hailed abroad for pushing Poland into a market economy but are
- despised at home for causing 10% unemployment and threatening
- the survival of hundreds of state-owned businesses. Figuring
- that Poland had to bear economic pain in any case, Walesa has
- generally supported moving to a free market as quickly as
- possible. The choice may have been an effort to garner the
- center-right's support for laws to strengthen presidential
- powers, including more say in naming the Cabinet.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-