Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503080062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WARSAW, POLAND                                 LENGTH: Medium

EX-COMMUNIST TO LEAD IN POLAND

The leftist-dominated lower house of parliament voted 272-99 to approve the new Cabinet, a compromise worked out with President Lech Walesa that included his choices for foreign, defense and interior ministers.

Oleksy's bow to Walesa, a staunch anti-communist, smoothed the way for Saturday's vote and the chance to end months of political feuding that has tested Poles' patience.

Poland joins Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania as newly democratic former East bloc countries where former communists have won back control of the government in a backlash against the social costs of market reforms.

An election Sunday in Estonia is expected to end rule by young radical reformers and bring to power former low-level communists and others.

Oleksy will lead Poland's sixth government since the Communists were toppled in 1989.

The most prominent newcomer is the foreign minister, Wladislaw Bartoszewski, who is Poland's ambassador to Austria. He is an Auschwitz survivor who spent seven years in Communist prisons after World War II.

Walesa forced Peasant Party leader Waldemar Pawlak to step down as prime minister last month.

Pawlak had proved ineffective and had slowed down the privatization of big industries and other reforms, endangering economic growth.

Although the same leftist coalition is still in control, the compromise Cabinet appears to have quieted the feuding between the leftists and Walesa.

Oleksy promised after the vote to draft a list of his government's priorities, having promised on Friday to continue the reform course charted after 1989 by governments led by former Solidarity activists.

``The time for words is passing, I'm aware of it, and I confirm my readiness for actions,'' he said.

Oleksy also has pledged to continue Poland's drive for membership in the European Union and the NATO military alliance, all but stalled for months by vacancies in the defense and foreign ministries that went unfilled as Walesa and Pawlak could not agree on candidates.

The new government held its first informal meeting Saturday, but without Bartoszewski and Okonski, who were traveling, said Oleksy's spokeswoman Aleksandra Jakubowska said.