SLD selects ministers, foreseeing first non-coalition government since 1989

With three days left until the elections, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), the party with support escalating to around 50%, has announced candidates for their new cabinet. SLD leader, Leszek Miller, will hold the position of Prime Minister. Yesterday he named Marek Belka as his likely Finance Minister and deputy Prime Minister. Belka, a U.S.-trained economist and adviser to President Aleksander Kwasniewski, would take the role of deputy Prime Minister with broad oversight of economic policy in the SLD government. "Belka is perceived to be responsible, moderate and very much in tune with the market and international investor sentiment - a safe pair of hands," commented Juliet Sampson, currency strategist at Bank of America in London. Leszek Miller also said that Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, SLD Prime Minister in 1996-1997, was his pick for Foreign Minister. Marek Pol, leader of the Labor Union (UP) party allied to the SLD, would also be a deputy Prime Minister and head a new Infrastructure Ministry. Krzysztof Janik, chief of the party's electoral campaign is likely to take over Interior Affairs and Jerzy Szmajdinski, chairman of the parliament's Defense Committee, would likely take over the defense portfolio. If the election goes the way polls are indicating, SLD will be the first to form a non-coalition government in Poland since the transition to democracy in 1989. (Reuters; Puls Biznesu, p. 4; Rzeczpospolita, p. A11) A.K.