Parties reach a truce

Work on the budget was finally resumed on Saturday. The final vote will take place on January 24, but the road to compromise was bumpy and led to a serious crisis in the Sejm last week.

The problems started after Sejm Speaker Marek Jurek announced that the government wanted to postpone the vote over the 2006 budget bill in order to consider recently introduced amendments. However, in this particular case timing turned out to be crucial. If Law and Justice (PiS) had succeeded in prolonging the budgetary debate, the bill would have been sent to President Lech Kaczyński after February 12, giving him the authority to dismiss the government and call for new elections.

The latest opinion surveys show that the conservatives enjoy growing support and could win an overall majority in a snap election while several smaller parties could fail to make it into parliament. That prospect infuriated the opposition, who refused to allow the delayed vote. Sejm Speaker Marek Jurek from PiS accused the opposition parties of causing anarchy in the Sejm, but his party was eventually forced to agree to the compromise.

PiS won parliamentary elections in September, but lacks a majority in parliament. The expected coalition with pro-business Civic Platform (PO) never came to life, and currently PiS must rely on ad-hoc alliances with smaller parties to pass legislation. During the crisis in the Sejm, PiS met representatives of PO, and hopes for the coalition re-emerged but after the talks PO leader, Donald Tusk, said a coalition with PiS did not look "very likely."(Reuters)