WARSAW (Thomson Financial) - Former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski will be the prime ministerial candidate of the centre-left LiD coalition in the October 21 legislative elections, an official said Sunday.
'Alexander Kwasniewski will be our candidate for the post of prime minister,' AFP reported Wojciech Olejniczak, one of the leaders of the LiD, as saying.
Kwasniewski was consistently Poland's most popular politician through two terms as president after defeating Lech Walesa in a 1995 vote.
His official return to the head of the post-communist left, however, was marred by pictures shown on television on Saturday of a speech in Ukraine, which showed him struggling for coherence after a reception.
Opposition MPs attacked Kwasniewski as having embarrassed Poland by being drunk in public.
Kwasniewski did not deny he had been under the influence.
'It's not important whether I had one glass of wine or ten,' he told private channel TVN. 'I am free to do as I wish.
The LiD, an alliance of Social Democrats and left-wing former members of the Solidarity movement which helped spur the collapse of communist rule in 1989, is in third place in opinion surveys which predict it will get between 10 and 16 percent of the ballot.
The conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of Poland's ruling twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, prime minister and president respectively, and the Civic Platform are neck-and-neck according to surveys.
Kwasniewski, who was president between 1995 and 2005 and was replaced by Lech Kaczynski challenged on Sunday Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski to hold a television debate -- an invitation the premier has accepted.
Early this month, Polish deputies decided to dissolve parliament, paving the way for elections in October 21 -- two years ahead of schedule -- after a minority coalition led by the PiS broke up in disarray. patrick.graham@thomson.com *48 22 447 2430 pjg COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.