ELECTION IN POLAND

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25089, 22 January 1947, Page 7

ELECTION IN POLAND

Results For 372 Seats GOVERNMENT WINS 327 (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, January 21. The final result of the Polish election is expected to give the Government bloc about 390 seats out of 444 in the new Parliament, says the British United Press correspondent in Warsaw. A Government spokesman said the following seats had already been allocated:— Government bloc .. .. 327 Peasant Party .. .. 24 Others .. .. .. 21 He added that seven city seats in Warsaw would go to the Government bloc, two to the Peasant Party, and one to the Work Party. Official provisional returns from 394 districts, including 49 from Warsaw, show results as follows: Votes Government bloc .. .. 650,287 Peasant Party .. .. 53,146 Work Party .. 27,449 Independent Catholics .. 6.399 Dissident Peasants .. .. 2,460 Others .. .. 1,251 American correspondents, in their dispatches, agree that the voting was reasonably secret in Warsaw, but in the country there was little chance to check the careful preparations made in the small towns and villages for an overwhelming vote of confidence in the Government. The correspondent of the New York "Herald-Tribune” said that in the course of a 250-mile drive through the country outside Warsaw he observed open voting practised at every polling booth visited. However, many of the voters insisted on voting secretly and no propagandist or physical coercion was exercised by the Polish security police or anyone else to force open voting. Ralnh Ingersoll, former editor of “PM,” cabling from Warsaw, said that the voting was free and honest. He saw orderly lines of people passing through the voting rooms in Warsaw. Ingersoll said that he talked to Opposition poll watchers, who said that they had nothing to complain about, and. that the people had not been intimidated.