WARSAW : Push for New Powers
Poland’s Sejm (lower house of Parliament) is expected to debate this week a controversial bill that would give the Solidarity government special powers to issue decrees and break a legislative logjam holding up dozens of free-market reforms. The government also plans to ask for constitutional changes strengthening the powers of President Lech Walesa.
The fate of the measures is uncertain given that the powerful lower house is still dominated by former Communists and their allies, who occupy 65% of 460 seats under a negotiated election formula agreed upon in 1989.
Voters are to choose Poland’s first freely elected Parliament since World War II in elections on Oct. 27.
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