Polish Election Loss Conceded by Communists

Poland’s ruling authorities Monday conceded defeat to Solidarity in a humiliating electoral wipe-out for the Communist Party.

In the first free balloting in this country in more than 40 years, candidates backed by the Solidarity trade union were devastating their Communist-coalition opponents by margins of 70 to 75 percentage points.

“Solidarity got a decided majority,” said a spokesman for the party, in effect acknowledging the opposition’s landslide triumph two days before the official count is scheduled to be announced. “The results are genuinely unfavorable for the (party) coalition.”

‘Moving Toward Democracy’

In Washington, President Bush said the election results show Poland is “moving toward freedom and democracy.”

“We haven’t seen the final results, but Communist bureaucrats beware in Poland,” Bush said at a news conference.

The early, and unofficial, returns released by Solidarity indicated that:

-- Solidarity would capture all 100 seats in a newly constituted Senate.

-- Solidarity candidates are likely to sweep nearly all of the 161 seats apportioned for open competitive elections to the Sejm, or Parliament.

-- And the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the government’s special “national list” of 35 unopposed candidates, who represent the government and party establishment, would fail to receive the 50% minimum vote for election to the Parliament.

Official results will not be ready until Wednesday, but the results released by Solidarity--although heavily weighted to urban areas such as Warsaw, Katowice, Krakow and Gdansk that represent only 10% to 20% of the vote--are considered an accurate reflection of the trend. The state news agency PAP acknowledged late Monday that returns from 11 cities showed Solidarity heading toward overwhelming victory.

The results are by no means an upset, but the apparent failure of the government’s “national list” candidates to win election is a stunning slap in the face for the regime, whose leading figures see themselves as the architects of a historic Communist compromise with the opposition.

Also, their defeat threatens to throw the delicately drawn compromise between Solidarity and the government into a major constitutional logjam. The government and its allies were counting on most of the 35 seats to ensure that it had two-thirds of the 460 seats in the Sejm, the lower house of the National Assembly. A two-thirds vote is needed to override any attempted veto of legislation by the Senate, or upper house, which the drafters of the new constitution foresaw would be dominated by Solidarity candidates.

Now, if Solidarity’s apparent sweep becomes official, the Communist Party and its allies would be at least 10 votes shy of being able to override a Senate veto. Officials on both sides said the election results will now lead to further negotiations between Solidarity and the authorities over how to replace the defeated “national list” deputies.

Officially, Solidarity took a low-key and conciliatory approach, with leading strategist Bronislaw Geremek setting the tone when, in a meeting with reporters Monday, he referred to the compromise negotiations that led to the elections.

“Now in front of us,” he said, “there is a political process that we want to be a continuation of the round-table process.”

Coalition Ruled Out

Solidarity advisers, along with party and government figures, said they do not know what sort of compromise will be worked out, but Solidarity spokesman Janusz Onyskiewicz said Solidarity would reject any proposal for a coalition government with the Communists.

“Solidarity has forever stressed that it is a part of the opposition, and it will remain so,” he said.

The few party figures who were available for comment Monday expressed a mixture of bitterness and gloom.

Stanislaw Ciosek, a Politburo member and a key member of the government team that negotiated with Solidarity, accused the union of abusing the spirit of the round-table talks.

“We are losing the election,” said Ciosek, one of the 35 “national list” candidates. “We took the risk and this is the consequence. It is as violation of the round-table. Solidarity campaigned directly against the national list. . . . As a result, Solidarity has the opportunity to paralyze the whole political system. The opposition has a moral responsibility to form a coalition.”

“I don’t know what will be done,” said Ludwik Krasucki, the reformist editor of the party’s theoretical journal. “There can be a compromise in every situation. The problem is, how stubborn will the compromise be? To avoid some earthquakes, we will need a compromise in the Parliament. The door is still open, but the way is much more complicated.”

The irony is that the election law’s requirement that national list candidates receive a minimum of 50% of the votes to be elected was, both sides admit, a mistake that was overlooked until the election law was published. The Solidarity side, in the round-table negotiations, had clearly agreed to the election of the national list candidates.

Interviews with scores of Polish voters suggested that many simply could not resist the first-time opportunity to ax Communist candidates from the ballot--even those whose participation in the government seemed the best guarantee to the orderly continuation of the reform process here.

“It was too delicious,” said a Warsaw bookkeeper, a 44-year-old woman whose experience may have been typical. “I thought I would leave one or two of them on the list, but when I had the ballot in front of me, I couldn’t resist it.”

The Solidarity leadership is clearly nervous over a victory that may be too overwhelming for comfort. The fear among the union’s advisers is that a deadlocked government could bring about a constitutional crisis that might, in turn, result in party hard-liners mounting a major backlash. It is a view voiced by party liberals as well.

The government, which has floundered in a deepening economic and political crisis for the last year, had counted on a bargain that would bring Solidarity into the system as a way to shore up public support for a difficult program of economic reforms.

The authorities also hoped that the election would legitimize their hold on power for four more years, when new elections are scheduled. In effect, however, the Communists have taken a potentially crippling blow in risking even partially free elections.

Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, in Gdansk, echoed Geremek’s note of compromise. He acknowledged there was a danger in the rejection of the national list candidates.

“But a lot of people understand that,” he said, “and will find some solution which will help carry out reforms in this country.”

Jan Bisztyga, the Communist Party coalition’s spokesman, contended that the party had foreseen the possibility of a Solidarity landslide.

“It was more a referendum than a real election,” he said in an appearance on Polish television Monday night. “The party is determined to be consistent and continue the process of democratization. We will not withdraw ourselves from this path and we are not going to go back on our responsibility.”

The greatest danger, Bisztyga said, was “any threat to law and order.”

“If feelings of triumph and adventurism cause anarchy in Poland, democracy and social peace will be seriously threatened. Authorities, coalition and the opposition cannot allow such a situation.”

Solidarity spokesman Onyskiewicz, on the same program, modestly suggested that the final tallies in the election might seem less overwhelming than the initial projections. Then he added:

“Poland is moving along the path of reforms, seeking a peaceful and political solution to the kind of problems that China has been trying to resolve by force. We must ensure that such a situation never develops here.”