News In Brief
| Warsaw
Poles extend parliament to test new voting system
Poland's parliament extended its four-year term, due to end next month, to the end of 1984 while voting reforms are tested in local elections. Parliamentary elections would have been the first national poll since the government's confrontation with the Solidarity trade union and its declaration of martial law in 1981.
Legislators also approved a new voting system, which will be used for the first time in local government elections due to take place in the spring.
The banned Solidarity union said the new voting procedures had been drawn up in such a way as to ensure that the preferred candidates of the communist authorities and their allies would be elected.
