Poles Rejected Regime in Balloting, Solidarity Says

The outlawed Solidarity labor movement declared Sunday that results of Poland’s national referendum last week represented a popular vote of no confidence in the Communist government.

“The Communist authorities failed to win a public mandate to govern,” Solidarity’s national executive commission said in a written statement.

Signed by Lech Walesa, a founder of Solidarity, and nine members of the executive commission, the statement was Solidarity’s first comment on the Nov. 29 referendum in which fewer than half of Poland’s voters supported the government.

Government Needed Plurality

Of those eligible to vote, only 44% backed a proposed package of radical economic reforms, while 46% voted for a program to liberalize political life. The government needed more than 50% of all eligible votes to win the referendum.

“The number of people who decided to ignore the referendum or to give negative answers . . . is evidence of gradual awakening of social moods and determination to defend social and civil rights,” said the communique issued by Solidarity’s national spokesman, Janusz Onyszkiewicz.

The statement said Poles are aware of the need for economic and political reforms but have no confidence in a system of government based on political favoritism, in which people are given responsibility on the basis of party loyalty rather than qualification or merit.

Incompatible with Reason

“Experience has shown that a totalitarian system is not compatible with a rational economic order, market mechanisms and independent social life,” the communique said.

Reforms “should make it possible that one will be able to live better and with dignity, without desperate concern about tomorrow,” the statement said. “Polish society may not accept the policy which replaces complete reform with price hikes.”

Two-thirds of Poland’s eligible voters cast ballots in the referendum, and the Warsaw government contended that the referendum was not a total defeat because its proposals won a majority of the actual vote cast.