President Lech Walesa, in a dramatic speech to Parliament, acknowledged Friday that Poland's political instability was scaring off foreign investors and appealed for stronger executive powers.
"Our credibility is slipping away," he said. "Poland belongs to the countries of so-called high risk, and no one will invest money in risky businesses. Only stable authority and a real program of changes, conscientiously realized, can revise our image in the world."But Walesa's statements were coolly received by a Parliament that is reluctant to relinquish powers to the country's best-known political figure.
Highly regarded in the West for its bold economic program of 1990 and 1991, Poland has suffered a loss of credibility since elections last year produced a fractured legislature with 10 bickering political parties.
The coalition government of Prime Minister Jan Olszewski has repeatedly lost important struggles, most recently this week when lawmakers approved spending proposals well beyond limits agreed to by Poland in talks with the International Monetary Fund.
Walesa has made little secret of his desire to displace the Olszewski government, and the prime minister did little to warm relations when he skipped the speech Friday. A spokesman told the Polish Press Agency that Olszewski was working.
At the heart of the conflict between Poland's first democratically elected president and its first democratically elected Parliament since World War II is a major legacy of communism: Poland's Constitution.
Walesa, the former shipyard worker who led the Solidarity movement in the 1980s, won the 1990 presidential elections and then quickly concluded that his office was largely ceremonial.
He immediately asked Parliament to approve a "small constitution" that would give him the authority to appoint and dismiss prime ministers.
The Parliament flatly refused to reduce its powers and showed little evidence after the speech that it was going to soften the stance on the constitutional change, which requires a two-thirds majority vote.
Krzysztof Krol, a leader of the populist party Confederation for an Independent Poland, concurred with Walesa's assessment of Poland's political morass.