Poles poverty protest fades

More than five separate protests are expected

WARSAW, Poland -- Opposition attempts to mobilise thousands into protesting against poverty and unemployment have failed.

Small bands of activists did join demonstrations across the country but in nowhere near the numbers opposition leader Andrzej Lepper and his Self-Defence party had hoped for.

Police spokesman Pawel Biedziak told Reuters: "The protests were a complete flop. We normally have more trouble on match day in the football league."

Most protests and efforts to block roads were easily dispersed by police units.

On the eve of the protest Lepper, whose party ranks second behind Prime Minister Leszek Miller's reformed communists, predicted: "This is just the beginning of a wave of protests which should bring us to our goal of taking power in Poland."

Three years ago, Lepper and Miller marched together in Warsaw to demand the right-wing government of the day quit.

Now, Self-Defence, which won seats in last year's general election and has increased support to 19 percent, is cutting into backing for Miller's Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which has fallen to 33 percent.

Gains by Self-Defence have raised fears that Poland's pro-EU government could stumble as it enters the final stretch in talks to admit up to 10 mainly eastern European countries to the bloc.

Miller called Tuesday's protests a "day of judgment" and had urged Poles not to rally behind Lepper, who he says offers slogans and not solutions to Poland's 17 percent jobless rate.

Most of Self-Defence's protests have not been officially sanctioned.

The party was tight-lipped over where Lepper would lead demonstrations timed to mark the anniversary of a crackdown by communist forces on striking workers in Radom in 1976.