Election Puts
Poland on New Path; Gay Activists Cautiously Optimistic

Poland is set to change course after a turbulent two years under a government whose old-fashioned Catholic values and strident approach to the European Union alienated many younger, urban voters.

Opponents of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski turned out in strength on Sunday, swelling turnout to a post-communist record of 53.8% as they mobilized for a different vision of their country, as a nation looking to a promising future instead of a painful past and seeing European neighbors as a source of opportunity rather than a threat.

Donald Tusk's pro-E.U. and market-friendly Civic Platform party swept to power in Sunday elections with overwhelming support from the young and from better-off western Poland. Voters rejected Kaczynski's nationalist and conservative policies that often left their country at odds with the European Union.

''I'm really happy -- it seems that something can finally be different now,'' said Maciek Morus, 32, a Warsaw musician who voted for Civic Platform, not because he identified with the party but simply to oust Kaczynski.

''Law and Justice is dogmatic. It was too conservative with its right-wing Catholic views and no sense of humor.''

Anna Zdrojewska, an editor in Warsaw, expressed a sentiment common to many younger Poles at home and abroad -- embarrassment at Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski.

''Kaczynski's government was so shameful to me,'' said Zdrojewska, 24. ''I am really glad about the results.''

Observers say the country is now better positioned to repair ties with the E.U. and reject Kaczynski's drive to punish former communists and collaborators for the regime that fell in 1989. A court rejected the government's legislation to screen up to 700,000 people for communist pasts, including teachers and journalists.

The communist purge and many of the Kaczynski's stances, including support for higher pensions and his abrasive exchanges with Germany -- a NATO ally and fellow EU member -- appealed to the older generation that remembers communism and Nazi occupation during World War II.

''This election was definitely about modernization and choosing forward-looking policies as opposed to looking back to the past,'' said Pawel Swieboda, director of the demosEUROPA think tank. ''Poles clearly voted for an open and inclusive government.''

Besides dumping Kaczynski, voters also turned away from his sometime coalition partner, the ultra-Catholic League of Polish Families, which vowed at one point to seek legislation to fire teachers who spread what they termed ''homosexual propaganda'' in schools and called gays ''pedophiles.'' The party failed to make the 5% hurdle to get into parliament.

But there were also questions about just how much will actually change in some areas given that Civic Platform -- like Kaczynski's Law and Justice -- takes a conservative position on issues like abortion and gay rights, and has also shown a past determination to also fight hard for Poland's interests abroad.

Indeed, when it comes to economics, some may find Tusk's economic policies harder-edged than those of Kaczynski, whose stress on family values led him to increase social benefits for having more children. Tusk wants to trim the welfare state and cut taxes, which he says will create an ''economic miracle'' that will lure back Poles who have left for Britain and Ireland to work.

European leaders welcomed Tusk's victory. E.U. parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering, for one, welcomed Civic Platform's election victory as a ''good signal,'' saying that ''one is always glad when committed Europeans will stand at the head of a new government.''

Kaczynski clashed repeatedly with the European Union, fighting to protect Poland's sovereignty. There are now great expectations in Brussels that Poland under Civic Platform stewardship will be easier to deal with.

Analyst Swieboda, however, warns that Civic Platform is also a party that has shown a willingness to fight hard for Polish interests abroad. It was a former Civic Platform leader, Jan Rokita, who coined the slogan ''Nice or Death!'' in 2003 in a failed Polish drive to hold on to its generous voting power in the E.U.'s Nice Treaty.

''The style of foreign policy will change much more than the substance,'' Swieboda said.

A leader of Poland's small gay rights movement was cautiously hopeful.

''For sure it means a change and I hope a change for the better -- but I wouldn't be that optimistic because Civic Platform party leaders are not that pleasant toward the gay and lesbian minorities,'' said Robert Biedron, the head of the Warsaw-based Campaign Against Homophobia. ''I hope they will at least pretend that they are tolerant.''

Biedron said that his group lost government funding for antidiscrimination work and other programs and faced constant government investigations.

''The last government accused us of importing transsexuals from Germany and sending them to kindergartens, which is absurd,'' Biedron said. ''It created an atmosphere of hate. I've never seen any transsexuals, by the way, from Germany in Poland. I hope at least this madness will go away.'' (Vanessa Gera, AP)