Polish Govt loses vote

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 10

Polish Govt loses vote

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw

In an event unprecedented in Soviet bloc history, the Polish Government has failed to win a national ballot on a package of sweeping economic and political reforms.

A Government spokesman, Jerzy Urban, said yesterday that only 44.28 per cent of 26.2 million eligible voters had answered “Yes” to a first referendum question on approving an economic

recovery programme entailing austerity and across-the-board price rises. Only 46.29 per cent supported a second query on whether they wanted liberalisation of Poland’s political system. According to rules established by the Sejm , (Parliament), the Government needed the support of more than 50 per cent of eligible voters to ] win the referendum. i A 67.2 per cent turnout 1

was the lowest since the Communists took power in Poland after World War 11. It was also the first time in Soviet bloc history that a Government has failed to win overwhelming support for an issue put to a public vote. Turnouts and election results usually run well above 90 per cent “The referendum won’t produce anything, one way or the other,” Lech Walesa, leader of the

banned Solidarity union, told Reuters. “Poland is a divided country and only true pluralism can unite it,” said Mr Walesa, who had urged Poles to ignore the plebiscite. In an apparent facesaving effort, Mr Urban emphasised that twothirds of those who went to the polls had backed the Government’s reform package. “From a political and moral standpoint we got

strong support for deep reforms but the Government did not win a legally conclusive majority,” he said. “We do not consider the outcome a defeat”

But, in a typical opposition assessment of the poll, the veteran dissident Jacek Kuron, said: “This does not mean that society is opposed, to swift economic and political reforms, only that it has no confidence in those who are carrying them out.”