Politics on Fast Forward.(Poland elects Democratic Left Alliance)(Brief Article)

For anyone who tuned out of Polish politics after the triumph of Solidarity and the downfall of communism in 1989, the results of the latest elections in Poland must have been bewildering. The Democratic Left Alliance, as the former communists renamed themselves, won 41 percent of the vote, a lopsided victory against a host of other parties that were relegated to the status of distant also-rans. The Solidarity coalition that had ruled the country for the last four years came up with less than 6 percent, not enough to qualify for a single seat in the new lower house of Parliament. The second biggest vote getter, with 13 percent, was the Civic Platform, a new, pro-business, centrist party that doesn't fit into the old bipolar world of Polish politics. What, the puzzled outside observer might ask, is going on in a country that led the assault on the communist system, triggering a chain reaction of collapsing regimes throughout the Soviet bloc?

The short answer applies to almost all the countries of Central Europe that experienced those upheavals: the history of the battles before 1989 matters less and less to voters. For them, the accelerated pace of change makes the last 12 years feel more like a whole new era than simply a new chapter in their lives. In Poland, the latest elections represent the second or third turn of the wheel during this era. Already in 1993, the former communists defied the predictions of their political demise and staged their first comeback, winning a plurality and putting together a series of shaky coalition governments. Now they are still 15 seats short of an outright parliamentary majority, but their leader, Leszek Miller--who will be the next prime minister--will be in a much stronger position to rule, even if he has to function as the head of a minority government.

It's hardly surprising that Poles are voting politicians in or out of office on the basis of their performance since 1989, largely disregarding their pre-1989 resumes. Despite the remarkable economic growth of Poland throughout most of the 1990s, the most recent Solidarity government was ineffective in countering a dramatic slowdown in the economy, a ballooning budget deficit and a jump in unemployment to 16 percent; it was also plagued by a series of highly damaging corruption scandals. For their part, the former communists appear genuinely committed to promoting fiscal ...