WORLD : ‘Have to Be President’--Walesa

Lech Walesa said in an interview today that he doesn’t want to but “will have to be president” to preserve Poland’s new democracy, and he vowed to wage a political war against his former Solidarity allies.

The union leader challenged the longtime intellectual allies in Warsaw who are opposing him to start a separate “center-left” political party and not hide behind the broad label of Solidarity.

“I do not want to be president. (But) I will have to be president,” Walesa said in the interview in Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s largest newspaper, whose use of the Solidarity logo Walesa disputes.

Walesa announced that he plans to start a daily newspaper owned by the Solidarity union itself.