Poland Turns to the Polls

...They had the old union badges in their lapels, they spoke the way they used to and they looked like their former selves...

...indifference, doubt, exasperation, and fear still prevail...

...It is planning a drastic increase in prices, with food becoming two or three times more expensive than it already is...

...The one real opposition force is Solidarity, a union that has traditionally been strong in densely populated, industrialized areas...

...The real novelty has been the re-establishment of a Senate, or Upper House, that will be able to veto Lower House legislation...

...This time, with the raise coming after the round-table agreement and after elections in which the opposition will have participated, the government expects to be able to share the burden...

...That problem is finding a way to slow down the steady decline of the economy and at least hold out the prospect of a better living standard for everyone...

...The President will be chosen for six years by both houses of Parliament (which areto have four-year terms...

...The regime has also promised further liberalization of censorship and some independence for the judiciary— both to a degree that is difficult to determine...

...A particularly important element of the new system is its strong presidential office...

...The opposition can present as many candidates as it wishes for the existing Sejm, or Lower House, but will be competing for only 35 per cent of that body's 460 seats...

...This pluralism has meant the relegalization of Solidarity, Rural Solidarity and the rebellious Independent Students' Association—with the possibility of reviving various other organizations that were dissolved by the authorities after the imposition of martial law...

...The government representatives gave their assurances during the negotiations that in the future the voting procedure will be more democratic...

...The opposition treated the round table not as an achievement in itself but as a means of achieving specific goals...

...At the time, however, the government did not undertake negotiations on social, economic or political reforms...

...Indeed, the government needs to appear conciliatory...

...This will be introduced as part of a market reform, but in recent years all price hikes have been given the same label and have had disastrous results...

...First of all, despite the shape of the table, the negotiations were really a bilateral affair between the authorities and the opposition represented by Solidarity...

...The Communist majority could then govern only by reaching compromises with its opponents...

...They are not integrated and have always been governed from the center, without any separate legal structures...

...Previously the coalition controlled the entire Sejm...

...Public opinion has tended to share its view that much remains to be done, if only because the opposition has far more credibility...

...The reasons for the present discontent are more numerous and more complex...

...Some adversaries of the government have declared that they intend to boycott the June contest...

...The Sejm can override the Senate's veto of a particular piece of legislation, but this requires a two-thirds majority...

...In most of the sparsely inhabited rural zones there are practically no opposition political organizations, nor is there sufficient time to form them before the elections take place on June 4 and 18...

...In addition, the television audience quickly realized that the most important decisions, those that broke the successive deadlocks, were not made in the spotlight...

...In the present situation it seems unlikely that anyone other than General Wojciech Jaruzelski will hold the top office...

...Rather, they were arrived at in an isolated government building in Magdalenka, near Warsaw, where Walesa and the regime's chief negotiator, Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak, met several times surrounded by their respective closest advisers...

...It will have two senators from each of the 47 national voivodships, and three from each of the two others that make up the country's largest agglomerations [Warsaw, and Katowice in Silesia], for a total of 100...

...But it seems unlikely that Solidarity will think it right to try to suppress the eventual social discontent that might provoke a widespread wave of strikes...

...Adam Michnik, a dissident for over 20 years, an influential adviser to Solidarity President Lech Walesa and an engineer of the talks, repeats that the more one gets the more one wants...

...counterpart...

...AFTER THE ROUND TABLE-I Poland Turns to the Polls BY ERNEST SKALSKI Warsaw Early this year there were places in Warsaw, Gdansk and Cracow where I began encountering people I used to meet in the 1980-81 period of Solidarity's legal activity...

...In any case, it is important for the opposition to enter the parliamentary process and acquire direct experience in managing the country's life...

...This is no doubt why those dates were stipulated, and at the round table the authorities were adamant about not advancing them...

...The opposition, naturally, looks to the day when there will be normal, free elections...

...Now these subjects have been pursued publicly and in some instances firm decisions have been made...

...The opposition's first task is gaining a majority in the Senate, so that it will be in a position to reject actions by the Sejm deemed to be inappropriate...

...Apparently it is easier to modify a political system than to design a new economic model...

...But such fundamentalist views are not widely held...

...Some of them I had seen in the intervening years —without the badges, of course—at clandestine meetmgs, on underground editorial boards and at discussions organized in churches where the police could not enter...

...Many of these people showed up at the government palace in Warsaw where the eight-week-long round-table talks between the authorities and the opposition ended April 5. From there they spoke daily to the country through the official television network—the only one in Poland—while fighting a funny duel with cameramen intent on keeping union badges off the screen...

...There were three primary discussion "subtables," concerned with politics, economics and the trade union question...

...The Senate is loosely patterned after its U.S...

...it wants to give an impression that it is gaining the support of the challengers and that an entente is around the corner...

...They argue that Lech Walesa and Solidarity have not been empowered to negotiate in the name of the whole society, and that in exchange for the union's relegalization Walesa has given credence to the Communist power imposed on the people by the Soviets...

...In the Senate elections, the government coalition and the opposition will compete for all seats, and the opposition thus faces a greater challenge than is generally realized...

...But the Polish voivodships are a result of an artificial division of the country in 1975...

...Viewed from abroad, the round-table talks may appear to be a triumph for the Polish opposition...

...Today there is discontent that not all the burning problems were solved and that the main issue—changing the political system—is to be dealt with over a period of several years...

...Probably the major result of the round table was a deal: The opposition agreed to political pluralism in exchange for being permitted to participate in elections...

...Perhaps history will judge them that way, too, but predictions are a tricky business in this country...

...Even those who are convinced the country is moving in the right direction are not certain that it can safely negotiate this slippery path...

...Translated by Anna Husarska) Ernest Skalski, a previous NL contributor, is a prominent Polish journalist on the staff of Gazeta Wyborcza, Solidarity's new above-ground daily...

...Both sides agree that the electoral law accepted at the round table is limited to the coming balloting...

...What Michnik says is true, but it is not the whole story...

...During the initial legal phase of Solidarity, when it had almost 10 million members (half the country's adult population), the union achieved nothing except the acceptance of its own existence—and even that was a temporary victory, crushed by the imposition of martial law in December 1981...

...In fact, the government's insistence on holding the elections in June was not only motivated by its hoping to catch the opposition unprepared...

...The proceedings at the subtables were reported in the press and on television, with the authorities' delegates underlining how much was accomplished and the similarities in the objectives of both sides...

...Although that is where the majority of voters live, they will elect only a minor portion of the Senate...

...On the contrary, the majority of the people appear willing to reach some sort of agreement with the government, although they worry about one problem in particular still not being solved...

...The remaining 65 per cent is reserved for the Communist Party and its allies—the United Peasants' Party, the Democratic Party, plus pro-Communist Catholic groups...

...It therefore stressed the problems the talks failed to resolve...

...Should the opposition manage to take all 35 per cent of the Lower House seats that it will be running for against the government coalition, that would suffice to sustain Senate verdicts...

...These dealt with issues ranging from mass media accessibility, the independence of the judiciary and local self-rule to the creation of a new government body and the office of President...

...Let's look at what really happened...

...Just a few weeks ago it was uncertain whether Solidarity would function legally...

...In any event, right now the atmosphere here is far from exultant...

...No breakthroughs were made in this area at the round table...

...The elections themselves, foranewly bicameralPolishParliament, areamore complicated matter...