World Notes Poland

With about 60 parties fielding candidates, the run-up to Poland's first truly independent parliamentary elections next weekend has been chaotic. But at least emigre businessman Stanislaw Tyminski, founder of Party X, won't be there to kick the electorate around anymore. Earlier this month he flew home to Canada, disheartened because Party X, which claims 4 million supporters, was denied a place on the national ballot on account of signatures on its qualifying petitions that were discovered to be false.

Many Poles, weary of Tyminski's crude emotionalism and obsessive anti- Semitic rantings, heaved a sigh of relief. His special enemy is ex- Solidarity activist Adam Michnik, editor in chief of Warsaw's Gazeta Wyborcza, whose paper noted two months ago how quickly Tyminski had supported the Soviet coup. The next day Tyminski sent a chicken carcass to the paper, characterizing it as carrion for carrion. Tyminski's political role is marginal in any case. The Poles' real concern is their economy, which has failed to rebound since the fall of communism in 1989.