After yesterday’s consultations with the political parties,
the President entrusted Marek Belka with the mission of
forming the government. This nomination has found support
from SLD (Democratic Left Alliance) and SDPL (Polish
Social Democratic Party) and has met with a positive
acceptance by Roman Jagieliński – leader of the Federational
Parliamentary. We believe that Marek Belka has a
60-percent chance that the Sejm will entrust him with the
formation of the government. In the current political situation,
Belka can count on support from SLD, SDPL and UP
(Labour Union) and on silent support from PSL (Polish
Peansants’ Party). Although the latter of these parties is
still talking about supporting Belka’s nomination, the weak
results of PSL in the opinion poll are a guarantee that PSL
will find a way of saving face and not helping parliament to
fall. However, even in the event of a vote in opposition of
Belka by PSL, parliament still has 260 deputies (out of 460
places), who are interested in parliament lasting as long as
possible.
In our opinion, Marek Belka’s nomination - which is well
accepted by the financial markets – gives rise to certain
concerns from the point of view of the implementation of
Hausner’s plan and the budget act for 2005. This is because,
on the one hand, we are hearing declarations about
the willingness to cooperate between Hausner and Belka
and the need to continue the plan from the leaders of SLD.
On the other hand, many members of SLD have doubts as
to whether support for Belka will help rebuild the party’s
position in the surveys. Even so, there will now be a situation
of blackmail in the form of the dissolution of parliament.
The problem may appear only if such an argument
disappears. This will be precisely the case in the event of
the passage of the acts that form Hausner’s plan. In this
situation, gaining government support and then “pushing”
through the acts by the Sejm could become an even greater
problem for Belka, the “expert”, than it was for Miller, the
“political fox”. There may even be trouble if the budget act
is passed. This is particularly the case where if it is not
passed, it would lead to elections next spring, which is a
reasonably well-accepted deadline, even among members
of the governing coalition.
Konrad Soszynski, Investment Research, CSOB