Word: communist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...waiting in the Chancellery when Tusk arrives. "I am not crazy about this job," he sighs, plunking down in an armchair and unbuttoning his jacket. That's understandable. Nineteen years after his country broke free from the Soviet bloc, it is still ridding itself of the effects of communist rule. Employment levels are among the worst in Europe. Roads, telecommunications and sewage lines are in terrible shape. As for Polish political life, Tusk admits, it can only be described as "weird...
...some ways, Poles, including Tusk himself, have never had it so good. Leszek Balcerowicz, a former Finance Minister and the chief architect of Poland's post-communist reforms, says the country is living through "its best period in 300 years." The economy is growing, and the country's alliances with Europe and the U.S. are strong. Not since 1989, according to one recent survey, have the Polish people felt so optimistic about the direction their country is taking...
...mark a new consolidation of Polish democracy. Where once 20 political parties vied for space in the Sejm (the Polish parliament), now a manageable four hold the floor. For the first time since the end of communism, voters reaffirmed the ascendancy of Poland's economic conservatives. The post-communist left has now failed to win in two successive votes. Yet Tusk, 50, is keenly aware of the challenges ahead. His party has no experience in power, and he has been criticized by the opposition for being a "media star" without substance. "If the aim of government is not to disturb...
...puzzle is what are the Communist Party cadres in Beijing feeling as they watch these events unfold ? Anger certainly. And worry about how the staging of the Olympic Games in August could be affected. But by all accounts, they have also been surprised, shocked at how resentment over Chinese rule has suddenly exploded, threatening to spoil what was supposed to be a positive, peaceful run-up to the Games...
Beijing's stance has left many observers puzzled over its inability to mount a more measured response: to practice better crowd control, to manage the media better, to try negotiation instead of knee-jerk repression. Some of the reasons are straightforward: the Communist Party is deeply secretive and highly bureaucratic, and its members are steeped in a longstanding culture of self- preservation. "Part of the head-in-sand problem has to do with entrenched bureaucratic interests," says sinologist Perry Link of Princeton University. "People who have devoted the last 25 years of their careers to 'opposing splittism' can't stop...