POLAND:Poland's ruling coalition collapsed yesterday, with President Lech Kaczynski firing ministers from two small populist parties, leaving the country with a minority government and early elections all but inevitable.
The coalition between Mr Kaczynski's Law and Justice party, the left-wing agrarians of the Self-Defence party and the right-wing nationalists of the League of Polish Families had become too difficult to sustain, said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the prime minister and the president's twin brother.
"That is why it had to be ended, notwithstanding the far-reaching consequences of this fact, the most serious of which will be elections."
Parliament is expected to vote on early elections within a month, with the poll expected in October or November, two years earlier than expected. Elections are a risk for Law and Justice because the conservative party is lagging behind the opposition pro-business Civic Platform.
Both the League of Polish Families and Self-Defence face electoral extinction, having lost many of their supporters to the more aggressive Law and Justice, and have united in the hope of scrambling past the 5 per cent barrier needed to secure seats in the next parliament.
The Kaczynskis' party narrowly won the last elections after vowing to cleanse public life of the corruption and ineffectiveness that had been a hallmark of the previous ex-communist government.
Its early promises included pledges to lower taxes, improve Poland's dilapidated infrastructure and overhaul public institutions and the legal system.
But Law and Justice's conspiratorial worldview and its reliance on populist coalition partners undermined the Kaczynski twins' ambitions to reform the country and establish a western European-style Christian democratic party that would dominate the centre right.
Tax pledges were dropped, public spending rose and candidates for senior public posts were chosen more on grounds of loyalty than of competence. Relations with the rest of Europe soured over economic protectionism and the Kaczynskis' view of Poland as a historical victim that was owed compensation. Ever tricky relations with Germany worsened.
The marriage of Law and Justice and its two coalition partners was always controversial and proved rocky from the start. The League and Self-Defence had been considered too radical for inclusion in government and widely criticised in the past, often by the Kaczynskis themselves, until they needed their votes.
The final disintegration came last month, after the prime minister fired Andrzej Lepper, Self-Defence's colourful and oft-convicted leader, as agriculture minister, accusing him of involvement in a corrupt scheme.
The former coalition parties accuse one another of criminal misdeeds, and the election is likely to be bitter.
So far the economy, which is growing strongly, has been unaffected, but the hopes that accompanied Law and Justice's election two years ago have largely evaporated.
Analysts blame the prime minister's suspicious nature for his government's failure. He often accuses hidden forces of controlling events from behind the scenes.
"His big mistake was treating politics like a permanent civil war," said Aleksander Smolar, a political scientist. "This is a politician whose governing conception was of a country ruled by the secret services."
The government saw its greatest successes in the murky worlds of spies and secret agents, trumpeting the dissolution of the military intelligence agency and the creation of an elite anti-corruption police force.
But the suspicious nature of Law and Justice's leadership and its controversial coalition killed off reform hopes.
The coalition parties began working together in November 2005, and their pact was formalised in May 2006. Since then, the coalition has become embroiled in frequent crises.