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Walesa Says He’ll Run for President

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From Associated Press

Lech Walesa--whose Solidarity trade union helped force the government to adopt sweeping, democratic reforms--said today that he will run for the newly created post of president.

“I am a man of big interests,” he said. “I’m being strongly pressed (by supporters). . . . And I plan to be a candidate for the highest government body (the presidency) that is going to be in Poland.”

Before today, the electrician, who won the Nobel Peace Prize after founding Solidarity, had said he wanted to concentrate on union issues.

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In a telephone interview from his home in Gdansk, Walesa said he would not run in June for a seat on the newly created Senate. But he said he may not refuse if a member of the existing Sejm or the new Senate nominates him when the two houses of Parliament meet later this year to elect a new president.

If that does not happen, Walesa said, he will probably run in the next presidential election scheduled six years from now.

“Solidarity plans to win these elections as much as is possible. The elections will tell exactly who is right. I wish well to all. Let the better candidates win,” Walesa told reporters at his home earlier today.

The PAP state news agency reported today that the balloting will take place June 4 with runoff voting June 18.

The voting will create a new 100-member Senate. Opposition candidates can also run for 35% of the 460 seats in the existing Sejm. The rest will be guaranteed for the communist-led coalition. Anyone who can get 3,000 voters’ signatures can run in the elections.

Solidarity, which has previously advocated election boycotts, met today to discuss which candidates it will support.

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Also today, Solidarity filed an application with the government requesting that it be made legal again after a seven-year ban.

Walesa said he expects the Warsaw Regional Court, where Solidarity applied today, to register the union by Monday, thus formally ending the ban.

“We are in a very good mood,” Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the opposition leader who negotiated trade union freedoms, told reporters outside the court after he filed the application for Solidarity.

“We do hope registration will take place within the nearest days, that the factory and local commissions will be able to get organized without any obstacles, and Solidarity will return to life as a powerful union,” he said.

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