World Notes Poland

For almost six weeks after the parliamentary elections in October, President Lech Walesa looked for another way out. Then last week he grudgingly acquiesced to the will of the dominant center-right coalition in the lower house and named Jan Olszewski, 61, a lawyer with a long history of defending dissidents to Communist rule, to the post of Prime Minister.

Walesa moved reluctantly because Olszewski favors softening the radical anti-inflation policies that have been hailed abroad for pushing Poland into a market economy but are despised at home for causing 10% unemployment and threatening the survival of hundreds of state-owned businesses. Figuring that Poland had to bear economic pain in any case, Walesa has generally supported moving to a free market as quickly as possible. The choice may have been an effort to garner the center-right's support for laws to strengthen presidential powers, including more say in naming the Cabinet.