Former Polish PM to head opposition

Published Apr 28, 2012

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Warsaw -

Poland's opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) on Saturday elected former prime minister Leszek Miller as their leader, the party said.

Miller, 65, was the party's interim leader since stepping into the post in December after the resignation of Grzegorz Napieralski, who took the blame for the party's meagre showing in October legislative polls.

The former communist was the only candidate on Saturday's ballot.

Some 60 percent of the party's 36,000 members took part in the election, in which Miller garnered 92 percent support for a four-year mandate, the party said during a congress in the capital Warsaw.

Miller headed a left-wing government from 2001 until he was forced to resign in 2004 after his popularity nosedived following a string of corruption scandals.

He left the SLD in 2007 but returned in 2010 after failing to set up his own party and a brief alliance with the populist Samoobrona (Self-Defence) party.

He won a seat in the 460-member parliament in the October polls along with only 26 other SLD candidates. - Sapa-AFP

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