AP News, September 7th, 2007
Poland's parliament voted to dissolve itself Friday, forcing an election that the government had sought to end persistent political turbulence. President Lech Kaczynski set the vote for Oct. 21, two years ahead of schedule.
Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president's twin brother, said the election would give voters a fresh chance to endorse what he calls his party's struggle to fight the corruption that has plagued Poland since the fall of communism in 1989.
"I want to express my joy at parliament's decision to dissolve itself," Kaczynski told reporters in parliament. "These elections will create the chance for Poland to decide whether it wants to continue on its path of transition, however difficult, or whether it wants to follow the path of the rule of oligarchy."
Poland, a U.S. ally and the biggest of the European Union's new eastern members, has experienced near-continuous political instability since Jaroslaw Kaczynski's conservative Law and Justice party narrowly won a 2005 election.
The party has since governed either as a minority administration or in a coalition with two small populist parties _ the right-wing League of Polish Families and the agrarian-based Self-Defense _ both skeptical of the EU.
That coalition collapsed last month, largely due to corruption allegations against Self-Defense leader Andrzej Lepper, who was the agriculture minister and a deputy prime minister.
The prime minister has since pursued snap elections in a bid to strengthen his party's hold on parliament and escape the current paralysis. He has long argued that post-communist Poland was ruled by a corrupt network of ex-communists, former secret agents and businessmen.
The 460-seat lower house backed parliament's dissolution by a 377-54 margin, well above the two-thirds majority it needed.
Polls suggest a close election race between the prime minister's Law and Justice party, and Civic Platform, another center-right party with a more pro-business stance.
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Associated Press Writer Monika Scislowska contributed to this report from Warsaw.
