Election of Oleksy as SLD leader divides party

He came ahead of the former leader Krzysztof Janik. The outcome of the elections divided the party members and a group opposing the new leader emerged. Part of those who voted for Janik were absent from the rest of Sunday's proceedings. The followers of Janik announced they have created a platform called Social Democratic Future within the structures of the SLD. The rest of the party members saw it as the next schism after Marek Borowski created his Polish Social Democracy, and left the SLD. "We will not be ideologically different, we will directly oppose the new party's management," said Andrzej Jaeschke, founder of the new platform, adding that the group is against the conservative trend that currently dominates the SLD. Another important person who did not show up at all was President Aleksander Kwa¶niewski. The official reason for his absence was that he did not want to favor anybody, but it was unofficially said that whether he were to attend or not depended on the outcome of the elections - the President would only show up should Janik win the office. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, A2, A5; Gazeta Wyborcza, pp. 1, 4-5, 27) D.W.