Walesa Dissolves Parliament, Will Call Vote

President Lech Walesa dissolved Poland’s first democratically elected Parliament on Saturday, a day after lawmakers brought down the government in a no-confidence vote.

He refused to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, deciding instead to disband the Parliament where 20-odd bickering parties have made forming a stable government impossible.

Walesa must schedule elections within three or four months, two years early. Suchocka will serve in the interim but without a Parliament to pass new laws.

Suchocka may yet be able to get the right to rule on some crucial economic reforms by decree. However, Parliament must agree to that before closing its final session. If it rejects the special powers, the government will be virtually paralyzed for months.

The dissolution of Parliament is effective with the official publication of Walesa’s decision, probably in several days.

The political chaos will delay progress on Poland’s economic transformation to a market economy and damage its standing with international sources of aid and investment.

Suchocka’s government fell on the motion of the Solidarity trade union movement, which fought for Poland to adopt a market economy but now thinks workers suffer too much. Nationalist parties on the right and the former Communists joined in the no-confidence vote.

Many agree that Walesa had little choice other than to disband the Parliament, which had proved unable to reach a consensus behind any government since it was elected in October, 1991.

Although crucial reforms have bogged down in the divided Parliament, Suchocka’s shaky minority coalition was able to score some victories, notably a plan to privatize many state-owned industries and a tight 1993 budget that won approval from Poland’s international creditors.