Poland:Poland's political paralysis could finally end this week as a showdown looms over allegations of corruption in the government's anti-corruption agency.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) was set up by the ruling Kaczynski twins to investigate shady deals in the post-communist era and to clean up public life.
Instead, it has itself been accused of crooked dealings by the man it claimed was involved in a bribery ring: deputy prime minister Andrzej Lepper.
The agency has produced no evidence for its allegations, but Mr Lepper, leader of the left-wing populist Self-Defence party, was nevertheless dismissed from office by prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
That dismissal three weeks ago plunged the government into a crisis from which it has yet to emerge. Each day brings a fresh hail of accusations among the coalition partners who nevertheless continue to cling together because of their common fear of an early election. Opinion polls show that they would be trounced by the opposition in any fresh poll.
As a result, the three parties try increasingly convoluted tactics to jockey for public favour.
On Friday, Mr Kaczynski fired two junior ministers - both from his junior coalition partners - accusing them of disloyalty and corruption.
Mr Lepper said he was beginning to notice a pattern in the CBA's investigations. "I think [it] is a political police unit that exists for the protection of only one party: the main party," he told reporters, demanding a parliamentary investigation into the agency's operations.
But Mr Kaczynski has produced a list of conditions for his coalition partners to abide by if they want to stay in office.
One demand is to drop their call for a CBA parliamentary investigation, something Mr Lepper is determined to resist.
The creation of the CBA a year ago was praised by Transparency International, the anti-corruption organisation. Now it dismisses the agency as the "propaganda machine of the government".
"It's made a couple of spectacular arrests that played well in the media," said Jagoda Walorek of Transparency International Polska. "Other than that, it's difficult to say what they really do."
Poland's volatile political leaders make it impossible to predict whether the government will collapse in the coming days or limp through until 2009.
"In my opinion there should be early elections, but I don't believe they will take place," said Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity leader and president.
"Those people who are in power won't let themselves be pulled away from it so quickly," he added.