Polish coalition party quits in row over minister

WARSAW (AFP) - A junior partner in Poland's ruling coalition said yesterday it was withdrawing its two ministers from government in a move that could set the scene for early legislative elections.

"The coalition exists no more," the head of the Samoobrona (Auto-Defence) party, Andrzej Lepper, told reporters following a vote by senior party members to end the partnership with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Lepper said the coalition "was broken by Jaroslaw Kaczynski's party," which last week appointed a controversial farm minister over Samoobrona's protests.

The minister, Wojciech Mojzesowicz, quit Samoobrona in 2002 and is now a member of the conservative PiS. He angered his former colleagues last year by trying to persuade some of them to jump ship in exchange for top political posts.

Kaczynski last Tuesday accused Samoobrona of intransigence over Mojzesowicz's appointment, and said defiantly: "If our allies want to break it (the coalition) up, we will have a minority government, followed by a snap election."

The next election is not formally due until 2009.

Poland's deputy prime minister, Przemyslaw Gosiewski, said Sunday: "We are going to intensively search again to secure a majority."

The effects of the decision by Samoobrona's political committee -- passed in a vote of 61 to eight -- will not be felt for some weeks, as parliament is in summer recess.

Lepper said that the two ministers affected -- Labour Minister Anna Kalata and Public Works Minister Andrzej Aumiller -- "are currently on leave, and they'll put themselves at Prime Minister Kaczynski's disposal after the vacations."

But, in any case, he warned that his party "would not vote any more in line with PiS policies from the next parliamentary session, which starts on August 22."

A PiS MP, Karol Karski, was sceptical, though.

"Let's wait and see if Samoobrona's ministers really offer their resignations and how its MPs vote in parliament at the end of the day," he said.

The PiS -- which is run by both Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski -- has just 150 MPs in the 460-seat parliament following 2005 elections.

It governed through a coalition with Samoobrona, which held 44 seats, and an extreme-right party, the League of Polish Families (LPR), which has 29.

The LPR's leadership is to meet Monday to decide whether it would continue to support the PiS.