Polish president rallies behind ailing leftist

Reuters Polska ^ | 2005-09-07 | Wojciech Moskwa and Pawel Sobczak

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Polish president rallies behind ailing leftist 2005-09-07 11:40

WARSAW, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski on Wednesday rallied behind his hand-picked candidate for successor, leftist lower house speaker Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, struggling to remain in the race. Cimoszewicz, a moderate leftist, has slipped from first to third in opinion surveys over the last six weeks after an error was found in his declaration of assets and hurt his cherished image as a clean hands politician.

European Union member Poland is set to tilt to the political right in parliamentary and presidential elections this and next month, with voters angry at the ruling leftists for numerous sleaze scandals and failure to significantly curb unemployment.

Cimoszewicz admits he made what he called "honest mistakes" in his declarations, such as forgetting to inform about 500,000 zlotys ($158,900) worth of shares he held, but says the issue has been used as a smear campaign. "I still maintain that Cimoszewicz is the best candidate for president," Kwasniewski told private radio Zet. "The campaign is definitely brutal, it has hit Cimoszewicz's image, wasted lots of time and ruined his reputation."

The latest presidential opinion polls put liberal Donald Tusk in the lead with support around 40 percent, followed by right-winger Lech Kaczynski and Cimoszewicz around 20 percent.

Tusk's pro-reform Civic Platform party is playing down the chances of their candidate winning outright in the first round of presidential elections on Oct. 9. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a run-off between two top contestants will be held two weeks later.

"Very seldom does a candidate win in the first round, but of course it can't be ruled out," said Hanna Gronkewicz-Waltz, the Platform's chief in Warsaw and former central bank governor.

Both Kaczynski and Cimoszewicz have focused their campaigns on attacking Tusk, whose moderate image is luring many Poles, wary of radicals on the right and left, along with their calls for a sharp change of course after 15 years of economic reforms.

Rivals are trying to brand Tusk as a socially irresponsible economic liberal, whose flat rate tax plans would help the rich at the expense of the poor, even though similar schemes have rejuvenated economic growth in other eastern European states.

[lizol]

Cimoszewicz admits he made what he called "honest mistakes" in his declarations, such as forgetting to inform about 500,000 zlotys ($158,900) worth of shares he held

You see, guys - "honest mistakes"!.

BUAHAHAHAHA!!!

[GOP_1900AD]

Good riddance to him! And his hand picked successor!

None to soon!

[lizol]

I hope we'll never see them again.

OK, maybe before the prosecutor and then the court of law.

[lizol]

BTW - a question to all the American FReepers.

Cimoszewicz maintains, that this money - $158,900 - was not his own, but his daughter's and her husband's (who is an American citizen). He says, that they transferred that money to his bank account from their American bank, asking him to buy those shares for them, but using his securities account. Then, after having bought the shares, he sold them them and - allegedly - gave the money and all the additonal income back to his daughter, to America.

Maybe anyone can tell me - is such an operation legal according to American law?