Poles, assailed by corruption scandals over the past few months, are expected to use Sunday's parliamentary elections to clear the air by voting Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek's AWSP coalition out of office.
Although Buzek has not come under suspicion of any wrongdoing, a string of high-level resignations this year have wounded his government, and left his AWSP on the verge of political oblivion.
Public opinion polls show AWSP will be lucky to cross the threshold of eight percent required to win seats in parliament.
Like in many other ex-communist countries, crime and corruption flourished along with the reformed economy in Poland, but the government has seemed unable to get a handle on the situation.
On the contrary, corruption is on the rise, notably involving kickbacks and shady dealings between businessmen and politicians, according to a World Bank report published last year.
"The central feature of high-level corruption appears to be close links and feedback between political and economic groups, between the public and private sector," said the report.
Poland got a score of only 4.1 out of ten in Transparency International's corruption index published earlier this year, putting it in the middle of the pack of EU candidate countries but behind some Middle Eastern and South American countries.
"Corruption is eating away at all parts of the state," said Alina Hussejn, a top official at the state Supreme Inspection Board (NIK).
Poles are fed up, with a recent poll saying 93 percent of people consider it as important an issue as unemployment, which at close to 16 percent is a major concern among voters.
The likely beneficiary of such frustration among voters is the opposition ex-communist SLD party, which polls show may win a majority of the popular vote in the September 23 election.
It was only at the beginning of the year that Buzek's government seemed to be getting a handle on crime and corruption with Justice Lech Kaczynski leading a popular crackdown on organized crime gangs.
But as elections neared, a number of scandals involving ministers and state-owned companies came to light.
Kaczynski's clean image however was abruptly sullied in July when allegations resurfaced that a party he previously headed received funding ten years ago from a scheme to rebuy Poland's international debt on the secondary market.
Buzek sacked him, but as the attack appeared political, Kazcynski did not suffer serious political damage and may beat Buzek's AWSP into parliament at the head of the new right-wing Law and Justice Party.
The government was embarrased again when an assistant to a deputy defense minister fled the country in July after bribery allegations were leveled against him and was plucked from a ferry heading to Sweden by Polish special services in a helicopter operation with fake passports and classified information in his possession.
The government then was rocked soon again by a report by the State Inspection Board that found "irregularities" in a tender last year for three third-generation UMTS mobile telephone licenses for 650 million euros each.
The board said it had found evidence of "a system favoring corruption" within the telecommunications ministry, and Buzek was forced to sack Telecommunications Minister Tomasz Szyszko.
Adding to a growing list of scandal-hit former officials, Grzegorz Wieczerzak, former head of the Polish insurance company PZU-Zycie, which is controlled by the Treasury, was arrested in July in a police swoop.
Wieczerzak stands accused of causing massive losses for the company when he made risky loans to private companies -- WARSAW (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
