Polish PM woos parliament speaker back to his party

WARSAW, Apr 25 (Reuters) Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said today Poland's speaker of parliament could possibly keep his post, meaning a planned vote to replace him seen as a possible trigger for early polls may be called off.

Speaker Marek Jurek and four other deputies quit the ruling Law and Justice party this month after a row over proposed constitutional changes on abortion.

''At this moment the issue of the speaker is unclear because it is unclear whether Jurek will leave,'' Kaczynski told a news conference. ''I'm in talks with Jurek and I hope he will keep his post and return as deputy chief of my party.'' Kaczynski had said he may look into calling early elections if the vote to replace Jurek gets bogged down by political infighting. Parliamentary elections do not need to be held until 2009.

Earlier, Law and Justice deputies asked to extend a deadline to put forward a candidate to replace Jurek and a spokesman in parliament said the deadline was moved until tomorrow evening.

One possible candidate for speaker, intelligence chief Zbigniew Wasserman, came under pressure today after a police raid on the home of a former deputy and minister from the opposition Social Democrats ended in death.

Barbara Blida shot herself, police said, after intelligence officials entered her home at dawn as part of an investigation into corruption in the coal trading business.

Her party, the Social Democrats, demanded an investigation, forcing a break in parliament until late afternoon. The legislature had been scheduled to pick a new speaker later today.

Opinion polls on Saturday showed backing for the conservative Law and Justice party had dropped to 19 per cent while a new party Jurek founded, the Right Wing of the Republic (PR), polled seven per cent support.

An opinion poll published today showed Law and Justice with 25 per cent support and PR with four per cent.

Kaczynski said he still hoped Jurek and the four other former Law and Justice deputies would return to Law and Justice.

Law and Justice won 27 per cent of the vote in 2005 elections and went on to form a coalition with two fringe parties, the nationalist League of Polish Families and leftist Self-defence.

Kaczynski's comments on early elections were seen as a warning to his coalition partners to toe the line if parliament does vote for a new speaker, since those parties have in the past withheld support in crucial votes to leverage political concessions.

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