Jaruzelski Won’t Seek Presidency : Polish Leader Cites Unpopularity, Backs Interior Minister

Polish leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski threw the national political situation into deeper turmoil Friday by announcing to the Communist Party’s Central Committee that he will not run for the new office of president.

Declaring that he would not be an “obstacle to reconciliation,” Jaruzelski endorsed instead Interior Minister Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak for the post, which will be filled by a vote of the newly elected National Assembly, expected to meet next week.

The new uncertainty about Poland’s leadership came little more than a week before President Bush is scheduled to start a three-day visit July 9.

The Central Committee, along with Communist Party deputies in Parliament, immediately asked Jaruzelski to reconsider his decision. But it adjourned its lengthy meeting without deciding on an endorsement for the presidency.

Linked to Martial Law

Jaruzelski’s statement to party leaders, who have been thrown into an unprecedented crisis by the Communists’ feeble showing in last month’s free elections, took note of the widely held public view that he is the one who should be held accountable for the imposition of martial law in 1981.

“I know well that public opinion associates me more often with martial law and less often with the line of reforms--with those so significant decisions of the 10th plenum,” he said, referring to the meeting at which various factions of the party fought over what ultimately was a decision to re-legalize the Solidarity trade union. “I must take into consideration social reality. . . .

“When there is an obstacle to reconciliation, to uniting social forces, there is only one possible solution--even if that obstacle is Wojciech Jaruzelski.”

There was no indication from Jaruzelski whether his decision not to run for head of government would affect his position as party chief.

As the party leader spoke, about 300 demonstrators opposing his choice as presidential candidate were battling police, using water cannon and tear gas just yards from the Central Committee headquarters. There were also anti-Jaruzelski protests in Katowice in southwestern Poland and Kielce in the south.

As head of the country’s extensive police and security apparatus, Kiszczak is also associated with the martial-law era. However, in his case the stigma seems to have been erased effectively as he led the government delegation to the so-called “round-table” negotiations with Solidarity starting last August.

Those talks produced the deal whereby Solidarity was once again legalized after seven years; a new political system, including the office of president, was set up; and the first free elections at which voters dealt the Communist Party a firm humiliation.

Endorsing Kiszczak, Jaruzelski called him “a soldier, a politician, a patriot and a man who has been close to me for many years. . . . In the eyes of society, including opposition circles, he is rightly considered a leading representative of the line of reconciliation.”

Although the elections last month saw Solidarity win 99 of 100 seats in the new Senate and all of the 161 seats it was eligible to contest in the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament, the Communist-led coalition maintains a slim majority in both houses, and is thus able to elect its own candidate for the office of president.

Jaruzelski’s declaration, however, could throw the process of reform here into even more conflict.

Support From Solidarity

At the end of the “round-table” talks, it was generally agreed by Solidarity activists that Jaruzelski, the undoubted architect of the negotiations, should hold the newly created office of president.

The elections, however, amounted to a cold shower for the Communist authorities and, somewhat surprisingly, for Solidarity, which had given at least tacit support to Communist liberals who had helped design the agreement between Solidarity and the government. But where they had a choice or the opportunity to cross out an unopposed Communist Party candidate’s name, the voters expressed their disapproval of the regime.

Solidarity’s senators and Sejm members are scheduled to meet today to decide on a policy in the apparent Central Committee impasse, and activists said that Kiszczak is an acceptable party candidate.

However, the party’s reluctance to immediately accept Jaruzelski’s withdrawal--and his endorsement of Kiszczak--suggested the possibility of a hard-line backlash that could threaten the Solidarity-backed power-sharing arrangement, which for the last year has depended on having the liberal wing of the Communist Party as a negotiating partner.

The issue is of major significance not only in Poland but in Eastern Europe, where Communist regimes have been given a fearful lesson in electoral politics, suggesting that even so-called “liberals” in the Communist Party have little hope of winning approval in free elections.

No Impact on Bush Visit

Party spokesman Jan Bisztyiga said at a news conference that the Central Committee, and Jaruzelski, would make a final decision over the weekend after consulting the Communist-allied Democratic and Peasant parties.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, commenting on the situation aboard Air Force One while en route with Bush to Maine, told reporters, “All we can say at this point is that we don’t expect that to disrupt the President’s trip.” He said that Bush “will be happy to meet with whoever the new leadership is.”