Lepper promises Samoobrona's support for incoming coalition government

Following a meeting yesterday with Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) leader and Prime Minister-elect Leszek Miller, Samoobrona leader Andrzej Lepper announced that his party would offer its support in parliament to the SLD and its coalition partners, the Labor Union (UP) and the Polish Peasants Party (PSL). However, Lepper said his support was conditional on the coalition successfully implementing the program it had earlier announced. Joining the informal coalition will allow a Samoobrona representative to be one of four deputy speakers in the Sejm. Samoobrona will also appoint the chairmen of three of the Sejm's 25 commissions. The SLD-UP coalition will decide 12 of the chairmen, Civic Platform (PO), like Samoobrona, three, and the smaller parties will share the remaining appointments among them. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A3) A.K.