Sometimes there are strong governments, sometimes there are sensible ones-but never both, and often neither. That has been Poland's fate since the collapse of communism in 1989, and it looks like continuing after a political deal this week that produced a muddled-sounding minority government, dependent on two dodgy and eccentric populist parties. It is tedious for Poles who are exasperated by their bickering and ineffective politicians; and tiresome for those who would like the biggest of the countries that joined the European Union in May 2004 to be governed properly. The new prime minister is Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of Law and Justice, a moralistic centre-right party that won both the recent parliamentary and presidential elections. Having spurned its free-market ally, Civic Platform, Law and Justice presented a programme to parliament on November 10th tweaked to win support from Self Defence, a populist party that speaks for losers in the economic upheaval of the past 15 years, and the League of Polish Families, a right-wing group linked to an ultra-Catholic radio station, with a youth wing that flirts with anti-Semitism.
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