Poland: The General Squeaks By

Party stewards counted the votes once, then tallied them three more times. When the result was finally announced to the 544 Deputies in the hushed Parliament last week, the reason for all the counting became clear. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the leader of Poland’s Communist Party, had won the country’s presidency with just a single vote to spare.

As the nation’s first elected President since 1952, Jaruzelski called on the contingent of opposition Solidarity Deputies to share responsibility by joining the Communist Party in a coalition government. But first he must get his own allies in line. Without a rival candidate, Jaruzelski required only a simple majority to be elected, a sure thing if all 299 Deputies belonging to the Communist coalition threw their weight behind him. The final count showed that eleven Communist alliance Deputies had broken ranks and that the general owed his election to maneuvering by a handful of Solidarity deputies.