WARSAW : Poland Joins Crowd

Poland’s Parliament takes up the question of new parliamentary and presidential elections this week, with both sides of the now-divided Solidarity movement urging an early ballot. National elections in June, 1989, were only partly free, with Communists and then-allied parties guaranteed a minimum number of seats.

Since then, the other East European countries have held fully free votes, and both Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and pro-Solidarity Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki think it’s time Poland joined the club.

President Wojciech Jaruzelski, the former Communist Party leader elected to a five-year term last year, has indicated he will step down voluntarily if new elections are scheduled.