TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/081489/08148900.023

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 111 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.