Solidarity won crucial backing Wednesday for a government of ”national responsibility” under the leadership of Lech Walesa, a government that, if approved, would break the Communist Party`s four-decade stranglehold on power in Eastern Europe.
Poland`s Communist Party leader described the situation as ”dangerous,” and a Soviet spokesman in Moscow said the Soviets are ”very concerned.” But Moscow tempered that assessment by welcoming Walesa`s statement Tuesday that Solidarity had no plans to upset Poland`s Warsaw Pact ties.
Wednesday`s action, a parliamentary caucus in which two minor parties in the legislature threw their support behind Walesa, empowered the Solidarity leader to direct negotiations leading to the formation of a new government. But it did not necessarily mean Walesa would be prime minister. He has repeatedly said he would prefer another candidate and would accept the position only as a last resort.
”I will not be the prime minister,” Walesa told reporters, although under questioning he said he had not made a final decision. ”There are better people than Walesa. I`m supposed to help form the government; it`s supposed to be formed under my leadership. But it is definite that someone from Solidarity will be prime minister.”
Bronislaw Geremek, leader of Solidarity`s parliamentary delegation, said Walesa would decide who should seek the prime minister`s post and the decision likely would be made by the end of the week.
”I have never assumed that Lech Walesa will be prime minister and I don`t assume it now,” Walesa said earlier. ”But I want to help the reformist wings of the United Peasant Party and the Democratic Party get into government and take up the challenges of the moment, which are now in the queues.”
Walesa was referring to the lines where Poles waste hours every day waiting to buy even the most basic items-bread, meat, flour, sugar-all in extremely short supply despite huge price increases that went into effect Aug. 1.
Walesa stressed the need for quick action to avoid social unrest. People, he said, ”already curse Walesa and you because we keep talking and there is less and less bread and even not enough cigarettes.”
He tried to play down the gravity of the problems facing the Communist Party. It will, he said, ”remain in the country and do fine, but it has to rid itself of its monopolistic characteristics, which subordinate everyone and everything.”
Solidarity`s drive to form the first non-Communist government in the Soviet bloc accelerated Wednesday when two traditional Communist Party allies, the Peasants and the Democrats, caucused with Solidarity and formally approved Walesa`s proposal for a reformist coalition government.
”We believe that under the leadership of Lech Walesa, a parliamentary coalition of the United Peasant Party, the Democratic Party and Solidarity is capable of forming a government of national responsibility, in which all the political forces of our country that have decided to act toward political and economic reforms could be represented,” said the joint resolution.
It was passed by an overwhelming majority of Solidarity deputies shortly before midnight. The Peasants and Democrats had voted earlier in the day to join a Solidarity-led coalition.
The plan envisages relegating the Communists, who have ruled the nation since coming to power after World War II, to control of the Defense and Interior Ministries, which are responsible for highly sensitive matters pertaining to Poland`s military obligations in the Warsaw Pact.
”We think that in the present political situation in our country this is a chance to quickly form a government that will meet the expectations of a majority of society,” said Democratic Party floor leader Jan Jankowski. ”And what`s most important, it can be a government that can quickly act to improve the situation in the country.”
There was no immediate reaction from President Wojciech Jaruzelski, who alone has the power to nominate a prime minister for parliamentary approval.
Jankowski said he believed the new coalition would be ready by Thursday to present to Jaruzelski ”concrete joint proposals” on the formation of a new government.
Solidarity`s parliamentary representatives applauded as their new allies, the Peasants and Democrats, filed into parliament`s main chamber for their first joint caucus to debate the resolution on forming a government.
No other room in the parliament building was big enough to accommodate the coalition, which together holds 264 of the 460 seats in the Sejm, or lower house. But even though the three non-Communist parties command a majority, it is in no way clear they will be allowed to form a government.
The ruling Communists have never said they would surrender control. Neither has Jaruzelski, who has called for an urgent political summit to reach ”rational solutions” to break the deadlock over forming a government. Solidarity aides said the summit could come as soon as Thursday.
The secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, Slawomir Wiatr, said in an interview published Wednesday that the party was deeply divided on the issue. He made it clear, however, that the party was not about to bow out after 45 years in control.
”Every thinking man, especially a politician, should realize that we are not yet in a state of parliamentary democracy,” he said. ”Having a majority in parliament is not in itself a sufficient condition to exercise power.”
Moscow, which called the crisis an internal Polish affair, has made no public pronouncements on how it would react to the installation of a non-Communist government in its largest and most volatile East bloc ally.
But Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Yuri Gremitskikh said in Moscow that ”the statement made by Walesa (Tuesday) was sensible, when he said that Solidarity would take into account the fact that Poland is a member of the Warsaw Pact.” The spokesman also noted that Walesa had promised that the Communists could retain control of defense and the interior.
Prime Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak announced Monday that he had failed to form a Communist-led government. Barring any sudden reversals, Kiszczak, approved as prime minister only two weeks ago, is expected to tender his resignation to parliament on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Walesa traveled to Warsaw from his home in the Baltic port of Gdansk. He went immediately to parliament, where he sat in on the joint caucus, listening and smiling as the discussion went on late into the night.
The speed of events seemed to have caught the beleaguered Communists by surprise.
”We have entered a period of an open struggle for power,” said the new party leader, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, according to the official PAP news agency. ”The situation is dangerous, but it is not the time to put up our hands”
in surrender.
Rakowksi, a longtime Solidarity foe, said Walesa`s attempts to form a government had undermined the alignment of political forces in Poland. He said the agreements signed in April-which re-legalized Solidarity and allowed it to run for parliament-were in danger of collapse.
Rakowski complained that the opposition was trying to radically speed up the processes of democratization outlined in the April accords, under which the partially free June elections would give way to totally free elections in four years.
But Solidarity argued that the depth of the current economic crisis-severe food shortages coupled with galloping inflation-was grounds for speeding up the process.
Tens of thousands of Solidarity supporters staged a one-hour work stoppage in the Gdansk region last Friday. Similar warning walkouts affected tens of thousands of additional workers in the industrial center of Katowice and the western port region of Szczecin on Wednesday.
