Leszek Miller

Leszek Miller (born 3 July 1946) is the Prime Minister of Poland.

Miller was born in Zyrardow in central Poland. He joined the PZPR - the Polish ruling communist party in 1969. Until 1970 he worked as an electrician in a linen textile factory in Zyrardow. In 1977 he graduated from a Higher School of Political Sciences (Wyzsza Szkola Nauk Spolecznych). He became a Member of the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) in 1969 and left it in 1989. In the years 1977-1982 he worked in the Regional Committee of PZPR in Skierniewice. In 1988 secretary of PZPR, and in 1989 he was briefly a member of the PZPR politburo.

After the dissolution of the PZPR, 1989-1993 Miller was secretary-general of SdRP. He became a member of the Sejm in 1991. He was a Minister of Labor in Waldemar Pawlak's government, and a minister of Internal Affairs in governments of Jozef Oleksy and Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz. He became President of the party SLD in December 1999 and served in this position until March 2004. He has been Prime Minister of Poland since September 2001. On March 26, 2004, he announced his resignation as prime minister. His government had encountered problems and unpopularity because of high unemployment, possible spending cuts, corruption scandals (most notably the Lew Rywin affair), and Millers support for United States President George W. Bush, particularly the American-led war against Iraq in 2003. Recently Millers former finance minister Wieslaw Kaczmarek (now in a splinter socialist party called Socjaldemokracja Polska) has accused him of illegaly using counter-intelligence services for political reasons.

Millers government has involved Polish troops in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The government has also completed an agreement for Poland to join the European Union. It will become a member of that organization on May 1, 2004, and Miller will leave office the next day.