Polish voters cause surprise

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32873, 23 March 1972, Page 13

Polish voters cause surprise

WARSAW, March 22. Most of Poland’s top party and Government leaders have suffered a setback in the General I Elections, though the re-election of the party chief, Mr Edward Gierek, was almost i unanimous, official re- > suits showed today.

Sunday’s elections to the 460-man Sejm (Parliament) were presented to 22 million voters as a popular referendum on the reform policies of Mr Gierek. The burly 59-year-old former miner took office

a year ago after food-price riots in the Baltic ports. A 97.61 per cent election turn-out has been hailed by the Communist Party as a “spontaneous expression of confidence" in the country’s new-style management, pledged to revitalise the economy and streamline bureaucracy while boosting living standards.

But the high measure of voters’ disagreement with lists of candidates offered by the Communist-dominated

National Unity Front came as a surprise.

The lists were drawn up by the front, which groups three political parties, with prominent party and Government leaders placed at the top. Voters, who chose twothirds of the names, could show dissatisfaction by changing their order.

Four members of the liman Politburo and almost all members of the key 11-man secretariat slipped well down from the number one position in polling list papers. Many came last among the winning deputies, though they were still dected by big margins. Most of the 22 regional party secretaries suffered the same fate—particularly on the Baltic coast, where riots flared among shipyard workers in December, 1970. The only way a voter could show disagreement with the six to eight candidates drawn up for 80 districts was to strike out the names.

Normally, they go into curtained booths to do so, but some voters openly crossed out names on ballot papers as they held them against a

Observers said that reasons for removing a candidate’s name from lists could range from local unpopularity or resentment at the appointment of an outsider, to impatience with the pace of economic changes.

Mr Gierek was re-elected a deputy almost unanimously in his home area of Katowice, centre of Poland’s mining industry, where he collected 99.80 per cent of the votes. Officials said the remaining 0.20 per cent of voters spoiled their papers. In the northern port cities of Gdansk (Danzig), Gdynia, and Szczecin (Stettin), die number one candidates al) finished last.