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Early elections in Poland to judge PM

Poles were voting yesterday in early elections that will pass judgment on Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski's assertive approach to the EU and controversial efforts to purge former communists from public life.

Polls opened on a chilly morning at 6am, and the first exit polls should be available after they close at 8pm. Complete returns are not expected until today or tomorrow in the contest between Kaczynski and pro-business challenger Donald Tusk, who wants lower taxes and less confrontation with the EU.

Kaczynski's socially conservative Law and Justice Party had pushed for the early election two years into a four-year term after the collapse of a shaky coalition with a right-wing Catholic party and farm-based populists.

The prime minister is gambling the election will give him a stronger hand to govern, but he risks losing power to Tusk's Civic Platform, which has seen its support rise in the polls since an Oct. 12 televised debate that Tusk is widely seen as having won.

Opinions seemed to be split among early voters.

"I voted for Law and Justice because this party is telling the truth and doing something," said Andrzej Sulkowski, 51, an office clerk. "In their two years of government they did what they could."

But they also built an opposition.

"I voted for Tusk just to remove Law and Justice from power," said Adam Lutostanski, 25, a translator. "They are too church-oriented."

Polls show only two other parties with enough support to make the 5 percent threshold to get into parliament: the Left and Democrats, a new alliance of ex-communists and some former anti-communist dissidents, and the moderate Polish Peasants Party, a pro-EU, farm-based party. Polls last week indicated the Peasants Party and Civic Platform together were within reach of a majority in the 460-seat Sejm.

Kaczynski and Tusk began their political careers as anti-communist dissidents in the Solidarity movement, which paved the way for the fall of communism in 1989.

Today, however, they part ways on how to deal with the ex-communists who were once their enemies.

Kaczynski favors a ruthless purge of ex-communists and their secret collaborators from public life -- a reckoning purposely avoided in the peaceful transition of power in the early 1990s. He maintains that the ex-communists, never punished, continued to wield undue influence in politics, business and the news media; but a court overturned his legislation to have up to 700,000 people, including journalists and teachers, screened for collaboration.

Tusk's party opposes that kind of reckoning, saying that Poland should not divert its attention from the new economic opportunities presented since the country joined the EU in 2004.

Kaczynski clashed with other EU countries over a new treaty to govern how the union makes decisions, demanding more say for Poland.

On the economy, the prime minister favors generous state spending to protect the poor and needy, and a strong role for the government in leveling out income differences.

During his time in office, the coalition he led introduced cash bonuses for new mothers and increased tax breaks for families with children.

Tusk favors lower, flat tax, less bureaucracy and other market-oriented policies that he says will create an "economic miracle."

The country already enjoys strong growth, but still is plagued by high unemployment and low wages that have seen many Poles move to Britain and Ireland for work.
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