Polish conservatives take power alone

Poland's conservative Law and Justice party took the reins of power yesterday, forming a minority cabinet after it failed to bring the pro-business Civic Platform into a coalition.

President Aleksander Kwasniewski swore in conservative Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and 17 cabinet members, formally ending four years of leftist rule that saw Poland join the European Union and back the war in Iraq.

The conservatives espouse traditionalist, Catholic social values combined with scepticism about free-market economics. The new ministers, many of them political novices, began their office with a mass in a Warsaw church.

"After several weeks of campaigning and debate we have a government made of experts, professionals and politicians - people who want to reform and want to repair the state," Mr Marcinkiewicz said after his appointment.

The conservatives won last month's general election on a promise to rule together with the Civic Platform in a strong, reformist cabinet focused on spurring faster growth and weeding out corruption.

But talks between the two parties foundered last week because of disagreements over top posts and the scale of economic reforms, and even last-minute mediation by the Catholic church failed to bring the former close allies together.