This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS WARSAW 000053 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PL
SUBJECT: POLISH BUDGET ROW HIGHLIGHTS GOVERNING PARTY'S 
SHIFTING TACTICS 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) minority government 
set off an uproar January 11 among opposition parliamentary 
groups, including those supporting the government, when it 
backed off from scheduling a budget vote this weekend, 
reviving suspicions that PiS plans to use a budget delay to 
call early elections.  The parliamentary session was delayed 
throughout the following day, as the party leaders met to 
resolve the issue.  Late January 12, Polish media were 
broadcasting unconfirmed reports that the leadership had 
agreed to an extraordinary two-week break, suspending the 
session until January 25, but parliamentarians were 
apparently still working behind the scenes.  These somewhat 
chaotic developments in parliament stem from the governing 
party's contradictory signals concerning its political 
intentions, as PiS weighs and hints at possible coalition 
options and early elections. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Government parliamentary allies Self-Defense and 
LPR, whose poll numbers have fallen dramatically in the past 
months, are particularly keen to avoid new elections and have 
already resumed their effort to forge some kind of formal 
coalition with PiS.  Meanwhile, centrist PO leader Donald 
Tusk met with PiS party leaders Jaroslaw Kaczynski January 
12, in an unusually friendly meeting aimed at a possible 
rapprochement between the two largest parties.  Kaczynski 
afterwards dismissed talk of early elections as a media 
creation, ignoring his statement the previous day in which he 
outlined a choice between a formal coalition and new 
elections. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Comment: It is difficult to imagine the parliament 
taking a two-week recess in the midst of its budget debate, 
but such a thing cannot be excluded given the lively and 
unpredictable course of Polish politics in recent months. 
The current parliamentary debate underscores the tremendous 
challenge facing PiS as a minority government and the need to 
set a clear political course.  Whether aimed at forcing new 
elections in April (if the budget is not approved by 
mid-February, President Lech Kaczynski is empowered 
constitutionally to call elections without the approval of 
parliament) or simply using that threat to force a coalition, 
PiS's current tactics cannot be sustained for long. 
ASHE