Polish Economy Minister Jerzy Hausner said on Monday he had quit the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and might join efforts to form a new centre-left movement to contest this year's elections. Hausner and Prime Minister Marek Belka have been frustrated by the SLD's rejection of calls for reform following a wave of sleaze scandals that have engulfed the ex-communist party.
"My path and the path of the SLD have been going apart and finally went apart. I consider this chapter to be closed," Hausner told TOK FM radio. "I am no longer a member of the SLD."
Hausner's ambitious plan to cut Poland's bloated public spending to prepare the European Union newcomer for euro membership has been watered down by the SLD, which fears it may hurt its already poor popularity ratings. A budget deficit well in excess of the eurozone's 3 percent limit is the main obstacle in Poland's path to the single currency.
The biggest new EU member from eastern Europe aims to join the euro in 2009-2010, but the European Commission and many economists say it could miss the boat if it does not trim welfare spending.
SLD CRISIS: Hausner's departure reflects disillusionment among many leftist liberals with the SLD, whose popularity has plummeted as a result of scandals and poor progress in curbing unemployment since its landslide election victory in 2001.
The party, struggling to regain momentum, reacted angrily to Hausner's defection, suggesting he should quit the government.
In December, the SLD refused to purge leaders implicated in sleaze and open itself to an alliance with smaller leftist groups, despite calls to do so from Belka and popular leftist President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Opinion polls show the SLD could struggle to win more than 10 percent of the vote in general elections due in the autumn and is likely to lose power to centre-right parties rooted in the anti-Communist Solidarity movement.
It may also lose the presidential palace in a separate national vote on a successor for Kwasniewski, who cannot run after his two terms in office end in the autumn.
Politicians say the left's poor prospects have prompted Belka and Kwasniewski to consider creating a new movement to unite liberal leftists and centrists like them around a reformist, pro-EU agenda.
"All surveys show that there is new room on the political scene. There is a need to create an offer for people who today are not keen to vote," Waldemar Dubaniowski, a top Kwasniewski aide, told the Rzeczpospolita daily.