Polish coalition falls in farm post row

A JUNIOR partner in Poland’s ruling coalition said yesterday it was withdrawing its two ministers from government in a move that could set the scene for early legislative elections.

“The coalition exists no more,” the head of the Samoobrona (Auto-Defence) party, Andrzej Lepper, told reporters following a vote by senior party members to end the partnership with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Mr Lepper said the coalition was “broken by Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s party” which last week appointed a controversial farm minister over Samoobrona’s protests.

Wojciech Mojzesowicz, quit Samoobrona in 2002 and is a member of the conservative PiS.

He angered his former colleagues last year by trying to persuade some of them to jump ship in exchange for top political posts.

Mr Kaczynski last Tuesday accused Samoobrona of intransigence over Mr Mojzesowicz’s appointment and said defiantly: “If our allies want to break it (the coalition) up, we will have a minority government, followed by a snap election.”

The next election is not formally due until 2009.

The effects of the decision by Samoobrona’s political committee — passed in a vote of 61 to eight — will not be felt for weeks, as parliament is in summer recess.

But Mr Lepper said that his party “would “not vote any more in line with PiS policies from the next parliamentary session”, which starts on August 22.

Recent polls suggest that the left-wing and liberal opposition could win if elections were to be called soon.