Poland considers a communist comeback

IF THERE ever was an acceptable face of communism, then it surely belongs to Aleksander Kwasniewski, the front-runner in today's presidential election in Poland. He is young, good-looking, sports Italian suits and oozes wit, charm and charisma. He is intelligent too.

Unlike his main rival in the contest, Lech Walesa, Mr Kwasniewski has a university education, can articulate himself clearly and has the added benefit of being able to converse in several foreign languages. He looks and sounds the part. "Let's choose the future," he has been declaring at his colourful campaign rallies as he has sought to persuade his countrymen that he is the man to lead them into the next millennium.

Unfortunately for him, the future is not really what counts. For most Poles, the really important thing about Mr Kwasniewski is his past. Although still only 41, Mr Kwasniewski held two ministerial posts in the last communist government headed by General Wojciech Jaruzelski and was a card-carrying member of the party for 13 years, right up to its dissolution in 1990.

He is now the leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) which grew out of the old Communist Party. And for all his protestations about being converted to the cause of social democracy, many see him as a leopard who can never change his spots. "Mr Kwasniewski is a slick operator and what he says appears to make a lot of sense," said Karolina Gostkowska, a student. "But no matter how fancily he dresses himself up, he is still a communist."

The reduction of the campaign to a slugging match between the heirs of the Communist Party and the Solidarity movement that brought it down has played into the hands of Mr Walesa, a man whose political future until recently appeared to be non-existent. Not surprisingly, however, it has caused consternation in the Kwasniewski camp, which believes that the debate is anachronistic and that their man is being unfairly tarred with the brush of the past.

"I am astonished by talk about a return to the old regime in which there was a political centre which decided about the economy, about television, about papers, banks, the army, the courts," says an exasperated Mr Kwasniewski. "This harmful differentiation drags us back to a long-gone past, to a stage of history which is closed." In his defence, Mr Kwasniewski says that although the SLD has been the dominant force in the government since winning parliamentary elections in 1993, it has maintained the course of economic reform and kept up the push to join Nato and the EU. As president, moreover, he says that he would work in tandem with parliament rather than be at constant loggerheads with it, as was Mr Walesa.

Mr Kwasniewski is undoubtedly able and amiable, say many, but while he was enjoying the perks of office under General Jaruzelski, hundreds of Solidarity activists were imprisoned. For all his modernity, moreover, many of those behind him are straight from the old school. The nomenklatura are waiting in the wings and would expect to be brought into positions of power and influence should their man triumph in the election.

The prospect of a President Kwasniewski is one that horrifies Poland's Catholic Church, which fears that he would try to curb its power and influence and which has openly called on its flock not to vote for him.

"We have 38 million people in Poland," said Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, the secretary of Poland's Catholic Episcopate. "Why should we reach for someone who took part in a totalitarian rule?"

Poles as a rule do not approve of the church meddling in politics. But for the millions who took part in the overthrow of communism, those sentiments are the ones that will guide them in the polling booths.