Polish Communists Force Prime Minister’s Election

Poland’s Communist leaders stamped out an unprecedented parliamentary revolt today and forced the election of controversial Interior Minister Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak as prime minister.

Parliamentary sources said Communist members pushed through his appointment by threatening to dissolve Parliament and ditch dozens of rebel Communist and allied Peasant and Democratic Party deputies from safe seats if Kiszczak was not approved.

Kiszczak, a craggy, 63-year-old army general and chief executor of martial law in the early 1980s, was then comfortably elected on a 237-173 vote with 10 abstentions.

But in a further sign of political turmoil in Poland, Parliament also voted 206 to 169 to form a special commission to consider impeaching outgoing Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski and members of his government for economic mismanagement.

Impeachment Move

Rakowski was elected Communist Party leader Saturday. The impeachment move appeared aimed at discrediting the ruling party, but several of its deputies voted with the opposition to create the commission.

Kiszczak promised to present a Cabinet and program within two weeks but indicated that no major change in economic policy would come by reappointing Ireneusz Sekula as deputy prime minister with responsibility for the economy.

Kiszczak’s election was thrown into serious doubt Tuesday by a revolt among Communist deputies as well as members of the Peasant and Democratic parties allied with them since the late 1940s.

Sixty of the Peasant Party’s 76 deputies and 13 Communists said Tuesday that they would join Solidarity’s 161 deputies in voting against Kiszczak. Some sources said up to 80% of the 27 Democratic deputies also threatened to join the revolt.

The rebellion was unprecedented in Poland’s post-war political history.

But Peasant Party sources said today that they were forced to back down by outraged Communists at a series of noisy caucus meetings Tuesday night and this morning.