Jaruzelski Won’t Seek New Post of Poland’s President

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski said Friday he does not intend to run for Poland’s new presidency because the people see him as the man who imposed martial law, not the leader of reforms that followed, the government reported.

It said Jaruzelski, the Communist Party chief, recommended the interior minister, Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak, for the job--a powerful post resembling the presidency created in the Soviet Union for Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The party’s Central Committee neither accepted nor rejected Jaruzelski’s proposal. Instead, the plenum asked Jaruzelski to reconsider his decision, the state PAP news agency reported. Party representatives in the Sejm, or Parliament, did likewise.

Party spokesman Jan Bisztyga said there would be a meeting soon to choose between Jaruzelski and Kiszczak. The Communist-allied Peasant and Democratic parties also would be consulted, the spokesman said.

“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,” when the party agreed in principle to restore legal status to Solidarity, Jaruzelski told the Central Committee. “I must take into consideration social reality.”

In a statement carried by state TV and the news agency, Jaruzelski said in endorsing Kiszczak:

“I would like to ask you to extend the recommendation of the Central Committee for the soldier, politician, patriot and a man who has been close to me for many years, Comrade Czeslaw Kiszczak.

“In the eyes of the society, including also opposition circles, he is rightly considered as a leading representative of . . . reconciliation.”

Jaruzelski said he was committed to removing obstacles to national reconciliation.

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

Anti-Jaruzelski demonstrators marched in the streets of Warsaw while the Central Committee met, hurling stones and gasoline bombs at police, who responded with water cannon.

The Central Committee convened Friday morning to choose a nominee for the presidency, which has been transformed from a ceremonial post. The president is to be elected by the National Assembly this week and the party nominee is considered certain of victory, although Solidarity won all but one of the seats put up for free election earlier in June.

Officials want the president in office before President Bush arrives for a three-day visit July 9.

Jaruzelski’s election had been assumed since the new presidency was agreed upon by government and opposition negotiators. The agreements, signed in April, also legalized Solidarity and provided for the partially free elections.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, however, Jaruzelski said he was not campaigning for the presidency and might not accept it without “at least a minimum of support” from the opposition. Solidarity legislators had said they would not vote for Jaruzelski.

Kiszczak could be easier for Solidarity legislators to support because of Jaruzelski’s connection with the martial law crackdown in December, 1981, under which Solidarity, formed during strikes the year before, was suppressed and outlawed.

The 63-year-old army general, a Jaruzelski loyalist, directs Poland’s extensive police network and helped conduct the government’s war against Solidarity in much of the 1980s.

He won the Solidarity leadership’s confidence, however, as leader of the government side in the “round table” negotiations. In addition, he joined Jaruzelski during the January party meeting in threatening to resign unless Solidarity was made legal again.

The National Assembly, which will elect the president in joint session, is expected to convene as early as Tuesday. The Communists have a 300-259 advantage.

Solidarity won 99 of the 100 seats in the new Senate and all 161 seats open to free election in the 460-member Sejm. One Solidarity senator-elect died of a heart attack Thursday, creating one vacancy in the Senate.

After the president is chosen, he is to name a premier to form a new government.

The president, who is limited to two six-year terms, will be commander-in-chief of the armed forces and be responsible for foreign relations. He may dissolve the Sejm for new elections and declare one 90-day state of emergency.

Solidarity is not expected to put up its own candidate.