So too can their chairman, Leszek Balcerowicz, the central-bank governor, whose term runs until 2007.

ECONOMIST: Poland's central-bank governor has been a huge success

Leszek Balcerowicz was the country's first Finance Minister after the fall of communism and initiated Poland's free market reforms.

CNN: Poland's economy booming 20 years after free elections

In one of the larger demonstrations, 70, 000-odd Solidarity trade unionists surrounded the offices of Leszek Miller's Social Democratic government.

ECONOMIST: Poland's government

The SLD leader Leszek Miller has promised to make life better for average Poles left behind in the country's post-communist boom.

BBC: Economic tests for new Polish regime

The Pope also met President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Leszek Miller.

BBC: Pope pleads for peace and mercy

Leszek Balcerowicz, the Polish finance minister who has overseen Poland's economic reforms, was in Kiev, Ukraine's capital, last week, once more urging Ukrainians to reform.

ECONOMIST: Poland and Russia

Faced with being the only one still resisting an agreement, Poland's prime minister, Leszek Miller, had begun in recent days to signal his readiness to compromise.

ECONOMIST: Revived to die another day? | The

When President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Leszek Miller had audiences with Pope John Paul during his visit, it's unlikely they confined the conversation to religious topics.

BBC: Pope strikes deep chord with Poles

The head of the Medical Research Council (MRC), Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, has been one of the first research leaders to back the call to make strategic choices in our research spending.

BBC: How to divide up the 'science cake'?

Leszek Miller, their artful leader, is hopeful that victory in November's presidential election and in the general election due by 2001 will help pull Poland to the left for years to come not least because Solidarity, a loose alliance of 40 or so parties, is incapable of merging into a single party.

ECONOMIST: Poland