国际英语新闻：President's plane crash: a "crash" for Poland

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, who served in 1990-1995, said the loss of so many elite figures was a misfortune to the country, and a huge loss of the nation.

Walesa's successor Aleksander Kwasniewski, in office till 2005, said the catastrophe would cast far-reaching influence on the social and political development of Poland.

The emergency is feared to result in a leadership vacuum in many of the country's sectors for quite some time and to breed seeds of instability.

BREAK BALANCE AMONG PARTIES

Polish President Lech Kaczynski speaks in front of a Polish government Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft at Krakow airport in this August 8, 2008 file photo. Kaczynski was feared dead after his plane crashed on approach to a Russian airport on Saturday.

The balance of political powers in Poland may also be at risk in the wake of the lethal accident.

The two most influential parties in the Eastern European nation now are the opposition Kaczynski-led Law and Justice Party (PiS), and the ruling Civic Platform (PO), which is headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

While both camps were hit hard in the leadership by the disaster, the blow for the president's bloc is obviously more deadly.

In the short run, the president's party may live on people's compassion. But the possibility of this compassion winning over the party's long-standing inferiority in opinion polls against the ruling party remains slim.