Jaruzelski Alters Stand on Presidency : Will Run for Post After Plea by Polish Communist Leaders

Communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski reversed himself today and said he will be a candidate for president, which the National Assembly is to elect Wednesday.

Gen. Jaruzelski had declared June 30 that he was not a candidate, saying he was too closely linked to the 1981 martial-law crackdown that attempted to crush the Solidarity union and not tied closely enough with democratic changes sweeping Poland.

He proposed the candidacy of a longtime loyalist, Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak. But Communist leaders asked Jaruzelski to reconsider and he appeared in the last few weeks to be leaning toward running.

The state-run PAP news agency said Jaruzelski, announcing his candidacy today at a meeting of Communist lawmakers, said he was “driven by a sense of duty” in heeding the urging of party leaders.

Simple Majority

The president is to be chosen by a simple majority during a joint session of the 100-member Senate and 460-member Sejm. The Communist coalition has a 54% majority in the National Assembly.

Jaruzelski today asked the Communist parliamentary deputies to switch their support to Kiszczak if he failed to win.

PAP later issued a statement by Kiszczak in which he said the Jaruzelski candidacy was “the best possible” and urged the deputies to vote for Jaruzelski even if he, Kiszczak, is proposed as a second candidate.

On Friday, Solidarity chief Lech Walesa said he would cooperate with Jaruzelski if the general is elected. He said political conditions require that the president come from within the Communist coalition.

However, as the Solidarity delegation convened this afternoon to decide how to vote, opposition lawmakers indicated they doubted there would be any support among them for Jaruzelski.

“I feel he is responsible for all of the mistakes. He is responsible so I cannot support him,” said Zofia Kuratowska, a deputy speaker of the Senate.

The new president will seat a government that must deal with worsening consumer shortages and inflation that, based on new statistics for the first six months of 1989, appears headed for an annual rate of 160%.

The presidency, whose powers include control of the military and foreign relations, was a result of government-Solidarity talks in the spring.