World IN BRIEF : POLAND : Walesa Vetoes Rules for Election

President Lech Walesa vetoed a law drafted for Poland’s first fully democratic parliamentary election. He exercised the presidential right of veto despite a warning from Mikolaj Kozakiewicz, Speaker of the Sejm (lower house), that such a move would make it impossible for the election to be held in October as planned. Walesa said the regulations were too complicated for voters to understand and would have created a fragmented Parliament in which governments would be unable to form a solid majority. Walesa had previously proposed that presidential and parliamentary experts redraft the law together. The Sejm refused to cooperate on procedural grounds.