Poland

No new Polish elections

Warsaw, Poland March 19, 2006 - Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Polish political party Law and Justice, announced yesterday that he will seek early elections to be held prior to Pope Benedict ' s visit to Poland that starts on May 25, 2006.

In order to hold those elections it would have to submit a bill to the Polish parliament and for that bill to pass it would require the support of opposition party Civic Platform. Today the Leader of the Polish political party Civic Platform, Donald Tusk, said that his party would not support elections prior to Pope Benedict's visit to Poland.

Donald Tusk reasoned the elections in May would not result in much difference in the parliament, anyway. He also said that he received many telephone calls from people who said that there would be too much interference with the preparation for the Pope's visit. Additionally, the Pope generally does not visit in the time period close to elections.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski replied that if Civic Platform did not support the elections it would not have the moral right to criticize the Kaczynski government. He also criticized Donald Tusk for using the Pope as an excuse for not holding early elections.

Donald Tusk said that his party, Civic Platform, would support elections in the fall which elections would be held concurrently with the local elections. He also said that there should be a change in the election law to make Polish election law similar to the British election law where the dominant party would rule and would have more responsibility.

Kaczynski criticized this saying that holding the national elections at the same time as local elections would create chaos and that Civic Platform would probably benefit. Kaczynski also rejected any idea of a change in election laws.

Classified Polnews