Winds of Change

Polish voters frustrated with economic austerity plans and sleaze are turning to a populist party led by a euro-sceptic pig farmer according to an opinion poll on Wednesday that put the Self-Defence party in the lead.

Prime Minister Leszek Miller announced last week he would resign the day after Poland joins the EU on May 1, after backing for his ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) hit a new low of eight percent, compared with 12 percent in February.

A survey by the CBOS agency shortly before Miller announced his resignation showed that support for the rural Self-Defence party, led by former pig farmer Andrzej Lepper, had soared to 29 percent in March from 19 percent in the previous month.

Support for the previous poll leader, the opposition centre-right Civic Platform (PO), fell to 26 percent from 29 percent. But the survey showed that 22 percent of those polled wanted the pro-reform PO to lead a government after the next general elections, compared with 18 percent for Self-Defence.

"This may indicate that support for Self-Defence is not yet well established," Gazeta Wyborcza, newspaper, which published the poll, said in an editorial.

The president has named former finance minister Marek Belka as his candidate for prime minister. If he or another candidate fails to win parliamentary backing, the president could call early elections before the scheduled date of late 2005.

Miller and Belka said on Wednesday they would opt for elections in the spring of 2005, rather than late 2005, or later this year as suggested by President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Analysts say leftist voters are turning to Lepper because they see the mainstream political elite as corrupt, incompetent and incapable of cutting record high unemployment of 20 percent.

"It is a manifestation of protest rather then support for the party's programme," said Andrzej Rychard, sociologist at the Polish Academy of Science.

Commentators said that the implementation of Lepper's programme -- curbs for foreign investors, state aid for ailing industries, and government management of the exchange rate -- would theoretically require that Poland leave the EU.

Lepper is also known for calling the central bank chief Leszek Balcerowicz "an economic bandit" and demanding the bank's reserves be invested in the economy.

But politicians have recently noted Lepper's change of style -- the man known for blocking roads in protest at food imports increasingly tries to project an image of a responsible politician and likes to quote Polish-born Pope John Paul.

"I am convinced this support will rise even higher. It's like a wheel which has started rolling and cannot be stopped," said Self-Defence deputy chief Stanislaw Lyzwinski.

"Our support has risen so high because people are fed up with the current government and the entire political situation."

Miller's SLD party traditionally attracted the support of people who associate their hardship with the switch to a free market economy after the 1989 fall of communism.