Poland has a new prime minister, who looks like a serious and decent guy.
The beaten-up leftists have finally got a politician on whom they can pin their hopes for success in the presidential elections.

For Poles who still care about politics, the vote of confidence for Marek Belka ends three months of chaos on the political stage which started with the fall of Leszek Miller.

The Poles have a prime minister whom they trust three times more than they did his predecessor, so they can go away on vacation. At least those who can afford it.

Prof. Belka has taken over the worst job in Poland at the worst possible moment.
Miller's rule unexpectedly led to a complete crisis of trust in public authorities, an equally unexpected-judging by the election results from three years ago-strengthening of the populist and center-rightist opposition, and a shocking disintegration of the ruling left. Once the man of greatest hopes, the super-macho of Polish politics, Miller has become the country's most unpopular politician and in opinion polls his party is close to the thin line demarcating parliamentary oblivion.

Historians will be the ones to judge how much blame should fall on Miller and his companions, who actually did a decent piece of work in a few areas, especially the economy, and how much is due to media hysteria and Poles' wretched mood as they fail to see any improvement in their personal situation. Suffice it to say that Belka is taking over with a massacred political backup, because he is a member of the same camp that Miller destroyed just as Napoleon did his Great Army as he retreated from Moscow.

The government crawled through the vote of confidence after two months of pumping every deputy, thanks to votes collected among the various deputy groups that were motivated mainly by fear of early elections and prematurely losing their parliamentary livelihoods. A prime minister forced from the very outset to maneuver between the groups that assured him a majority and their interests-that doesn't sound promising. Thank goodness that during the whole embarrassing spectacle of pushing the government through the Sejm, Belka behaved as if it didn't concern him at all. He put together a government, held a few charmingly general meetings with political parties and got down to work, without worrying too much about his parliamentary support.

Belka will have to deal with an opposition whose shaky emotions and loss of common sense have reached a point where even the only moderate, liberal and pro-European party-the Civic Platform (PO)-oversteps the limits of decency in flaunting cheap populism. Not only does the PO speak in unison with the anti-European populists against the European constitution. The PO also attacks Belka, through the lips of its leader Jan Rokita, for giving in on the references to Christianity in the preamble to the constitution. According to Rokita, Poland managed to wangle nothing, while the French got their way, namely "recognition of Christianity as something bad." It's hard to tell what Rokita-a probable prime minister after the next elections-is trying to achieve, besides a grotesque race against the bigoted League of Polish Families (LPR) in representing ultra-Catholicism.

Apart from weak support and the need to deal with a gagging opposition, Belka's government is in danger of being eternally branded as temporary. To gain the votes of the divided social democrats, the prime minister agreed to subject himself to another vote in just three months' time, and the limits of his work are defined by the approaching elections anyway. For now, Belka's ministers are behaving not like important figures but like refugees from Bosnia sitting on a railway platform on their suitcases. The quicker they unpack, the quicker they sit back self-importantly in their armchairs-the better for Prime Minister Belka's mission.

This is a mission that includes such pleasant tasks as reform of the healthcare system, on which several prime ministers have already broken their teeth, a painful reform of public spending, and proving that it's worthwhile for Poland to be in the united Europe.

This is the perfect mission for a suicidal maniac.

If any prime minister can be successful in Poland in 2004-it's Belka.
If he succeeds as prime minister, he has a good chance of being elected as the next president.

Belka has a personality and skills that are conducive to maintaining long-term popularity. He is warm but not gooey, calm, anything but flashy, commanding trust, cheerful. A man of the left, but if anyone is responsible for the loss of the Democratic Left Alliance's (SLD's) leftist face, it's Belka. He is one of the best-prepared and most competent Polish economists, though a fascination with the liberalism of Milton Friedman has left a strong mark, leaving him-for a socialist-with little social sensitivity.

Belka doesn't preen and he doesn't pretend. After returning from Brussels, instead of lamenting that God and Christianity couldn't be squeezed into the European constitution, he stated laconically on TV: "God and Christianity will manage fine without a mention in the constitution." Nobody feathered and tarred the prime minister for this statement, a bold one given Polish conditions, which proves both that the Poles are sensible and that the new prime minister is well-liked. This kind of boldness is something most leftist leaders are incapable of, most of them post-communist apparatchiks who unctuously wring their hands today at that horrible Europe that has forgotten about God.

One thing is certain: the opposition will not leave Belka's government alone. They will pester it with motions for the dismissal of successive ministers and reject any motions from the government. Only, the opposition could easily fall into a trap. After all, it is in as much danger from the possible success of Belka's mission as it is from his failure due to the excessive sharpness of the opposition's attacks. Attacks which the Poles, peaceful by nature, may take for rowdiness, which they hate.

Neither will the leftist political backup leave Belka's government alone. The lesson learned on the left from Miller's downfall has led to the idea of a return to the mythical leftist principles. A race among three socialist parties to show which of them is the most leftist is sure to make it hard for the government to carry out its economic plans, and threatens to halt the nicely accelerating Polish economy.

A lot depends on how much Belka-part salon professor and graceful charmer-becomes concerned about political games and pressuring.

If he just manages to survive to the end of term without catastrophe, after the elections to the Sejm it will take no more than six months of rightist government for Belka to win the presidential elections as a center-left candidate.

Belka is a man considered to be friendly with the Americans.
It was on their mandate that he filled major posts as part of the provisional authorities in Iraq from 2003.

Before leaving for Baghdad, Belka was famous for saying that for someone who had been Poland's finance minister twice, going to war-torn Iraq didn't seem all that risky.

Today he might say that anyone who grows tired of governing Poland can always run away to Iraq to find peace and quiet.

majman@brsa.com.pl