WARSAW, Poland, June 11 (UPI) -- Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski re-appointed Marek Belka as prime minister Friday giving him one last chance to be confirmed in his position.
Belka will need to win a parliamentary confidence vote within the next two weeks to formally accede to the Polish premiership. He lost a similar confidence vote last month by a wide margin but says he is hopeful of persuading parliamentarians to vote for him in greater numbers this time around.
Should he fail, Poland will hold new parliamentary elections in August.
Poland's political crisis came to a head in April when Prime Minister Leszek Miller was forced to tender his resignation. Miller fell victim to a catastrophic decline in the popularity of his Democratic Left Alliance whose support has fallen to single digits. The decline in popularity was precipitated by a string of corruption scandals and an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent.
Belka took over as acting prime minister May 2, the day after Poland joined the European Union.
