Election 2011 – former president laments Poland's 'two-party system'

“I wish there were more parliamentary parties,” Kwasniewski told the Polish edition of Newsweek magazine, adding that it was inappropriate for a US-style two-party system to exist in a European country.

Kwasniewski, the only politician in Poland since 1989 to secure two terms in the Presidential Palace (1995 – 2005) was referring to opinion polls that show that only two parties have a realistic chance of winning the elections on 9 October – the ruling centre-right Civic Platform (PO) and the more socially conservative opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS).

He also lamented that politics was not attracting high calibre people in Poland and that politics itself lacked big goals, such as joining NATO or the EU, as it had done under his years as president.

Kwasniewski, a former member of the communist party in Poland during the 1980s, said he would be voting for the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) in the elections in under five weeks time, a party which has not been in power since 2005.

Meanwhile, leader of Law and Justice, former prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has told the Fakt tabloid that his party was “focusing on gaining a majority” in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, encouraged, he said, by the party's own opinion polling which suggested a close fight on election day.

“At this point in time, the gap is only two percentage points to Civic Platform,” he claimed.

Opinion polls, however, have consistently put Law and Justice some way behind the Civic Platform since it first came to power in elections four years ago.

A poll by Gfk Polonia at the beginning of the month put Civic Platform on 47 percent and Law and Justice on 29 percent – though other polls have found the gap to be closer between the two main rivals.

Kaczynski firmly ruled out a coalition between Law and Justice and SLD, currently third in the polls, however.

“The very essence of SLD is opposed to what we want to do in Poland,” he said. (pg)