SLD lashes out at Socialist partners for May day "political hooliganism"

The Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) has criticized its fellow Polish Socialist Party (PPS) for "political hooliganism" during a May 1 parade organized by SLD. PPS members shouted a rhyme, "Buzek you nightmare, you will die like Aldo Moro." SLD said in a statement, "We treat threatening political opponents ... as a blatant disregard for the rules of democracy and a brutal trampling of values dear to the left." PPS head Piotr Ikonowicz said the SLD spokesman who issued the statement, has no sense of humor and that the rhyme was actually created in the 1980s by the opposition which shouted it with regard to Communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski. "These songs carry a note of youthful exaggeration, but it is obvious that none of these young people could even rip wings off a fly," he said. In 1997 Ikonowicz and several fellow PPS members successfully ran for Parliament as part of SLD. Last week Freedom Union (UW) deputy Olga Krzyzanowska read a protest in Parliament against Ikonowicz for calling Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz a criminal. (Gazeta Wyborcza, page 5) T.J.