Poland No Strength in Numbers

By John Moody

For Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski, 62, the real issue in Poland's first national elections since 1980 was not who would win but how many people would vote. The Communist regime wanted a heavy turnout in order to demonstrate that nearly four years after the imposition of martial law Poland had overcome its divisions and was looking toward the future. Yet when the votes were counted last week, the extent of participation--and the significance of the entire exercise--remained very much in dispute.

The outcome, however, was never in doubt. Though for most of the 460 seats at stake in the Sejm, or parliament, there was more than one candidate, only those approved by the authorities were elected. Jaruzelski was among 50 nationally prominent candidates who ran unopposed. Before the election, he had hinted that if 75% of the country's 26 million eligible voters turned out, he might offer amnesty to 280 political prisoners, although he did not specify when that might be. But Lech Walesa, leader of the banned Solidarity labor union, and other opposition figures called for a boycott of the elections, which they claimed would not even begin to reflect public opinion.

To assure a maximum turnout, the authorities banned liquor sales a day before the voting, rescheduled soccer matches and postponed a popular television soap opera until five minutes after the polls had closed. In rural areas, entire villages, in a swirl of colorful peasant costumes, dutifully trooped to local election halls behind brass bands. In the northwestern hamlet of Szczecinek, voting was temporarily disrupted when a woman gave birth to a healthy son beside the ballot box. In Walesa's hometown of Gdansk, 3,000 people marched through the streets carrying a banner that proclaimed WE WON'T GO TO THE POLLS, and in the steel-mill city of Nowa Huta, hundreds of youths clashed with plainclothes police. The head of Poland's Roman Catholic hierarchy, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, was conveniently in Rome on election day, and most of the country's 22,000 Catholic priests stayed away from the polls.

Because there were no independent poll watchers, however, a reliable estimate of the turnout was impossible. The state-run press reported that 78.8% of the electorate had voted, a figure that some Western diplomats considered credible. Solidarity, citing its own clandestine monitoring of the polls, contended that only 66% had cast ballots. Whatever the turnout, there was little evidence that the elections had healed Poland's internal fissures, revived its sagging economy or improved its chilly relations with the U.S., which imposed economic sanctions after martial law was declared.

Jaruzelski discussed these and other problems with the editors of TIME during his recent trip to New York to address the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. Excerpts from the interview:

On ties with the U.S. Relations are bad indeed, as they have never been before. It is not Poland's fault. We are prepared for full normalization in our bilateral relations with the U.S. But this has to be paralleled by a return to elementary political realism and, above all, a halt to the practices that hurt our people. The United States has traditionally enjoyed sympathy and understanding in Poland. Our pollsters find indications of a decrease in that positive view. It is not in our mutual interest for this trend to continue.

On U.S. sanctions. Directly or indirectly, the effect of the sanctions cost close to $15 billion. In practical terms, this boils down to a rapid reduction of meat consumption in Poland, along with other goods connected with economic cooperation with the United States and other countries of the West. But these restrictions are not the major problem. We are adapting to the new conditions. We have entered into even closer economic relations with the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (the East bloc common market). Just before leaving Warsaw, I had the opportunity of signing a very important agreement between Poland and the Soviet Union on close coordination of our work until the year 2000.

On the Soviet Union. The train that is being driven by (Soviet Leader Mikhail) Gorbachev is picking up speed with ever greater force. We believe we will be on the train, especially since others seem to be reluctant to cooperate with us. I believe that in the coming months and years, Soviet economic policy will be clearly seen as effective. It would be ideal if positive economic factors in both the East and the West neutralized the negative effects of the arms race, of lack of confidence.

On Solidarity. That chapter has been closed. The American public has been continuously misinformed about the real situation in Poland, including the origins of Solidarity and the destructive consequences for the stability of the nation. Solidarity was a very broad amalgamation, from Trotskyites to religious fanatics, who were joined by expediency and, temporarily, by their relationship to the state. This is why there have been so many irresponsible actions that have threatened the nation's economy and brought it to the brink of destruction. National income dropped by close to 25%. There was almost total ruin that had to be stopped.

On the church. Remnants (of Solidarity) today are trying to exploit the great authority of the Catholic Church in Poland, as if they were hiding under its umbrella. It is no secret that the church itself has a critical appraisal of such behavior. There are many cases in which people who never believed in any religion, or believed in the Jewish religion, go to church and get baptized when they are 50 or 60 years of age. I do believe that these are not religious conversions, but political conversions. The percentage of those who believe is very high, and we respect that. But a new category has emerged: the nonbelieving but practicing churchgoer.

On Polish patriotism. Millions of former Solidarity members are marching with us today. I believe some of those who are not with us are also patriots in their own way. No one has to have a license to be a patriot, but what counts is whether the consequences of his actions are beneficial to the country.

With reporting by Kenneth W. Banta/Warsaw